Harmony's Wrath
by hahatimeforponies
Summary: When Twilight and her friends are snowed into the library, they discover a book she doesn't recognise. It turns out, the story they find within hits much closer to home than they had expected. Diverges from canon after season 1.
1. How Equestria Was Made

"_Hoo-ee!_" Applejack called as she shook the snow from her hat. A blizzard was raging across Ponyville, forcing the friends to take shelter in Twilight's library. Behind the clouds, the sun was retreating behind the mountains in the late afternoon - mid-winter in Equestria. The earth pony shoved Rainbow Dash lightly as they crowded inside. "Ya'll weatherponies sure did a number with that there storm. Ah think we'll be stuck here for the night!"

"The blizzard wasn't _my _idea!" The pegasus snapped back, while Pinkie Pie bounced in past them.

"Does this mean we're having a _SLUMBER PARTY?_" She squealed, hopping from one hoof to another.

"NO!" Applejack and Rarity yelled in unison. Fluttershy, bringing up the rear, closed the door gently behind her. Twilight was already putting away her scarf and saddle.

"Blegh, makeovers," Rainbow added, fluttering up to Twilight's bed and disappearing behind the banister. "But I am up for... _pillow fights!_" A pillow shot from the upper level, hitting Pinkie Pie square in the face and knocking her to the floor.

"Guys..." Twilight tried to intervene, but to no avail, another one whizzing past her head. Pinkie responded by hurling the first pillow back up, but Dash was too quick - all it hit was ceiling. The pegasus swept around like a bomber, raining down a volley of three more cushions. With her focus on aiming her missiles, she collided with a bookshelf, violently relieving it of its contents.

"Rainbow! Now look what yer gone done." Applejack barked while she kicked away some of the fallen books. Pinkie pulled over the tome on top of the pegasus' head and examined the cover.

"_The Birth of Celestia_..." she puzzled for a moment, before a twitch-a-twitch of excitement bit her, and her eyes glazed over. "Ooh! Ooh! Is this the story of... how Equestria was made?" Twilight trotted over to inspect it further. With a firm puff, she blew off the layer of caked-on dust and inspected the volume.

"I don't remember when this got here... there's no blurb either. It might be!" She flicked through a few pages, skimming the odd line; some phrases pertaining to quests, adventure, battles, and so on. "Looks about right. I could read it if you like, and we could all find out together!"

"_OHBOYOHBOYOHBOY!_" Pinkie squealed, and parked herself right in front of Twilight.

"Well it ain't gonna trash the place like a pillow fight," Applejack chimed in, casting a smug look over her shoulder. Rainbow Dash was still pulling herself free from the mess of books.

"Agreed." Rarity chuckled, laying down on one of the pillows strewn across the floor.

"I-I'd like a story..." Fluttershy added with a meek little smile.

"_Pfft!_ Can't we do something _fun?_"

"Well, you can go outside and play in the snow if you really want to, Dash."

"Y'know what? Maybe I wi-" as the pegasus unlatched the door, it threw itself wide open. The icy wind blasted her in the face, like a dog riding with its head out of a car window. With some strain, she promptly shut the door again. "... maybe a story isn't such a bad idea." she chuckled. Twilight fiddled around with the book and began to read while Rainbow drifted over to one of the vacant shelves and settled down.

"Our story begins over a thousand years ago, before the birth of the Princesses Celestia and Luna. All the land was as the Everfree Forest; plants grew wild, animals took care of themselves, and the weather cared not for the whims of ponies..."

* * *

><p>The ancient ponies that built Canterlot were not the same as modern ponies. They walked upright on their hind hooves, and in place of their front hooves they had features called hands; appendages like bony spiders mounted on the forearms, that let them hold and grasp with ease. This was just as well, for if, like today's ponies, they walked on four hooves, the fledgling nation of Equestria would have had little chance of survival against its more savage and violent neighbours. The most voracious of these tribes were the gryphons - beasts with the hindquarters of lions and the heads, wings and talons of eagles. These barbarians would, without a shred of warning, ransack those settlements they deemed too close to their territory, plunder their riches and burn them to the ground. Every few decades, their numbers would allow them form a horde, and plunder the pony settlements of the north. It was one such horde that acquired a particular taste for the treasures of these towns, and their chief a distaste for its previous owners. With a common desire for gold drenched in pony blood, their avarice and her bloodlust formed a brutal alliance. Her name was Aurum. With the Gryphon King's blessing, she began her campaign for Canterlot.<p>

Word spread quickly of the marauding gryphons. As ruthless and efficient as Aurum was, she was also proud. From every town she razed to the ground, she made sure to leave a single survivor to send a message to their compatriots: that Chieftain Aurum is coming, and she wants to see the best you've got. As soon as these troubling words reached the ears of the High Sun Priestess of Canterlot, she knew she had to act fast. She selected two of her finest magic students - neophytes Venus Dawn and Bree Hornblende - as messengers to Cloudsdale, to retrieve Captain Bolt Spectra, the most accomplished flier in all of Equestria, and one of the High Priestess' most trusted military advisors.

Unfortunately, the move was short-sighted on the Priestess' part; the two neophytes were associates on a purely official level, and their rivalry ran deep. Dawn was by far the more gifted mage, and her talent was of a level rarely seen before, but she was timid and reluctant to display her abilities. Were it not for a chance encounter, she may have gone unnoticed, and never inducted into the Priestess' academy of magic. Hornblende on the other hoof was greatly boastful of her abilities, and could brag for hours on end about her skills without so much as casting a single spell. The two incensed each other by their very presence: Bree was deeply envious of Dawn's superior talent, and Dawn was enraged by (if unwilling to vocalise on) Bree's hyperbole.

They made the journey to Cloudsdale by balloon. To pass the time, Bree proposed a contest: tossing a bit into the air and using the balloon's basket to catch it. Dawn reluctantly agreed to the reckless wager, seeing little else to do. With each round, one pony would fling the coin vertically into the air, and the other would psychically swing the balloon around to catch it. Cloudsdale loomed in the distance as their game escalated, flinging the bit higher and swerving the balloon around more violently every time. Eventually, Dawn swung the balloon around, only for it to unexpectedly curl completely upside down. Unprepared, she fell from the basket. Bewildered as much as terrified, she looked back up. Hornblende was braced against the sides of the cradle, waving, a sly grin painted across her face. The balloon self-righted, and Bree left her rival to accelerate to her doom.

Dawn watched her life disappear with the balloon into the clouds. Her panic overwhelmed any focus she might be able to spare for magic to cushion the fall. Tears began to whip from her face as the wind whistling by intensified. Soon, though, something else interrupted the cavalcade of stressing sensations. A firm, but far from fatal, impact to her flank, and the jolt of a sudden change of direction. Winded, she looked around, to find herself not cratered in the ground, but caught by a pegasus! Due to the awkward position of the catch, she couldn't identify her rescuer beyond a pair of furiously beating cyan wings; nonetheless, relief washed over her as they came in to land.

"_Aah!_" Dawn was flung from the pegasus' arms upon setting down, and she skidded in the dirt. She struggled to her hooves, rubbing her head. "So to whom do I... _ugh_... owe my thanks?"

"Only Equestria's finest!" a smug, female voice replied. When Dawn opened her eyes, her rescuer was standing proud in front of her, arms crossed, wings flared out. Her multicoloured mane and tail, every colour of the rainbow, accented her sky blue coat. She wore the polished bronze armour of a guardspony - a breastplate, shinguards, shoulder guards and gauntlets over a white tunic. Grinning confidently, she extended her hand to the unicorn to help her up. "Captain Bolt Spectra." Dawn quirked an eyebrow as she took the hand. Bolt hauled her up roughly, making her squeal a little in surprise.

"Hm, just who I was looking for." she said, brushed herself off. "I am Neophyte Venus Dawn. I was carrying a message for you from the High Priestess... until I got thrown from my balloon."

"Wait, thrown?" An incredulous gawp replaced Spectra's aloof smile.

"Yeah, if you're quick you migh-" Bolt was off before Dawn had even finished her sentence. "...t be able to catch it." She was back before Dawn even had time to figure out which way she went.

"Lost 'em."

"Are you _quite_ sure?"

"Yep."

"You weren't gone for very long."

"Have you _seen_ how fast I am?" Spectra leapt into the air and somersaulted, before assuming a hover.

"Well, I guess you were pretty quick catching me..."

"I could clear all these clouds from the sky in _ten seconds flat._" Bolt's boast caught Dawn off guard. Her eye twitched a little.

"Aren't you a little grown up for those kind of gam-" Mid-sentence, an idea struck. "-es... wait, no, do it." Not needing another word's encouragement, Spectra shot off into the sky.

A pegasus' wings alone aren't enough to power their flight, but rather, they have a kind of subconscious magic that makes their wings drag against water vapour, letting them effectively swim in the air. This has the side effect of making clouds and puffs of steam semi-solid to them. It was this that allowed them to build a city in the sky from clouds, and if they so desire, permits them to alter the weather. True to her word, Bolt scrubbed the sky of all clouds within at least a hundred feet, leaving just a view of Cloudsdale hanging in the distant haze. She returned as quickly as she departed, bringing a rush of wind and drizzle after her. When she halted, the spray created a small rainbow as it washed past her head.

"Told ya!" the pegasus gloated. It took her a moment to realise that Dawn wasn't looking at her _obvious greatness_, but staring at the horizon. She looked back to see what was so interesting. "Uhm... there's nothing there." The unicorn glared at the phantom in the distance.

"Exactly..."

"What?"

"Captain, this is going to sound crazy, but I think we have treason on our hands. That way is north, correct?" She pointed out to the distance, directly in the direction she had been looking.

"I think so, why?" Spectra tilted her head, while Dawn sighed.

"The message I was sent with was about a gryphon horde to the north, under Chieftain Aurum. She's making strong progress to Canterlot, and the Priestess wanted to consult you for tactical advice. _But_, I wasn't sent alone. I was sent with another student of the Sun, Neophyte Bree Hornblende, and just now, she tossed me from the balloon, and it would appear she's retreating north." Spectra's eyes widened.

"We're going to Canterlot. _Now._"

* * *

><p>The High Sun Priestess' hall doors burst open. Two mares charged in, and threw themselves to a kneel at the foot of her altar.<p>

"Your holiness," Dawn began in the most urgent of tones. "We bring terrible word of treason!"

"Do you? Before you continue, tell me, Neophyte; where is your comrade?"

"Escaped, your holiness," Bolt interrupted, answering for her companion. "We have reason to believe Hornblende is worki-" before she could finish, the Priestess raised a hand to her, demanding silence.

"When I wish to hear from you, Captain, I will ask. Now. Neophyte Dawn, where is Neophyte Hornblende?"

"She threw me from our balloon and disappeared, your holiness!" The Priestess frowned. This was most unexpected. In her mind, unicorns, who made up the gentry and clergy, were above this ugly business of treachery. But pegasi and earth ponies - the military, middle and working classes - were not. She paced pensively, staring down the two ponies before her.

"Tell me, what proof have you that the foul play is not on the other hoof?" Dawn was taken aback at the very notion. "That you have not conspired with this pegasus..." she scowled at Spectra. Bolt fumed. "... to dispose of Hornblende? Or feign such notions so as to villify her? Do not think I am blind to your rivalry."

"But your holiness!"

"I have heard enough! I will hear no more until Neophyte Hornblende or the balloon are found." At this insult, Spectra snapped. _Who does she think we are? _She rose to her hooves and marched right up to her, barking out her piece.

"I can _assure_ you, Priestess, that when you find Hornblende she'll be riding under the banners of gryphons, and you won't know it until they're pounding on the gates of Canterlot!" The Priestess, indignant, tossed the Captain to the floor with a mere flash of her horn.

"I said I have heard _enough!_ I will not have this infighting and insolence in my court. Guards, remove these two conspirators from my sight!" The guards were a little stunned by the command. After all, these were allegedly the Priestess' most favoured and their own superior. They hesitated a moment before advancing on them. This moment, however, was all that Spectra needed to recover from the fall, grab Dawn and take off. Once airborne, she accelerated to the stained glass window at the back of the hall. She tucked her wings in and stretched out both hooves, to pierce the window and minimise damage from the shattered glass. The Priestess was furious; even burdened with a passenger, Spectra was still fast enough to escape the slew of binding spells she fired off. She barked to her guards, too livid to even check that an officer was among them: "I want it known to every stallion, mare and foal from here to the Everfree Forest that Neophyte Venus Dawn and Captain Bolt Spectra are to be slain on sight, and that anypony giving them so much as an apple in aid will be slain with them!"


	2. Change of Plans

Twilight paused a moment, thinking a little. The setting of the story seemed a little odd, and the way exposition seemed to tag-team with narrative made it feel a little awkward to read aloud, but it at least held together. She looked up, half expecting everypony else to be drifting off. To her pleasant surprise, everypony was alert and attentive, none more so than Rainbow Dash. She chuckled.

"Couldn't find anything more 'fun' to do, then?"

"What? It got interesting!" The pegasus protested. Twilight just smirked and returned to the book.

"I'm sure."

* * *

><p>Dawn clung to Spectra for dear life. She was at once terrified, watching the streets and city walls pass below at high speed, and grateful, an arrow whizzing past her head reminding her what a necessity that high speed was. She closed her eyes and held the pegasus' waist firmly, trying to ignore the vertigo. She nearly let go in surprise when she felt something rush below them, far too closely for her liking. Another downward glance showed her the cliff-face and forest below, approaching rapidly. She looked up to see Bolt under visible strain. Not injured that she could see, but definitely struggling to keep pace with a passenger. She gulped and tucked her legs up, preparing for a rough landing. Another arrow flew by, making her squeal. She felt herself slip a little from Bolt's grasp.<p>

_Thud._

The impact hurt a bit more than she expected it to, but she didn't hear a snap, and wasn't in _too_ much pain. As she skidded to a halt, she saw Spectra land in front of her, rolling in the dirt. Her wings flapped about chaotically, and she briefly popped into the air again before coming to a stop face down. An arrow was embedded in her arm, just below her shoulder guard. Dawn gasped and struggled to her hooves. She groaned out loud when she tried to walk, but nonetheless soldiered on.

"Bolt! Bolt, are you okay?" She knelt by the pegasus and shoved her.

"_Agh!_" Spectra growled. "That's _not_ how you treat a wounded soldier!" She pushed herself up, wincing a little from the pain. Without so much as missing a beat, she lifted her arm up and broke the arrow in half, discarding the part she had broken off. "Now _run_, we're still in range!" She propped herself up on Dawn's shoulder and started to sprint away from the city. Dawn hastily followed suit. Thirty seconds of frantic running - or, for Spectra, fifteen seconds of leisurely flying - took them into a grove of densely leafed trees, and they quickly ducked behind the crest of a hill. Looking back at the city, they could see pegasus guards starting to pursue. "We need to hide."

"Uhm..." Dawn pointed up at the trees, and with a little glow of her horn, opened a hole in the thick foliage.

"Hm. It works." Bolt conceded, and fluttered up to the hollow the unicorn had carved out. Dawn simply levitated up and dropped herself elegantly on a mat of branches and leaves. She pulled the hole closed, and they waited out the search. The impromptu hidey-hole proved rather effective; the thick leaf cover functioned like a one-way window. They could see the guards coming from a mile away through gaps, while the foliage was thick enough to completely hide them from an observer outside in the bright sunlight. The guards traced back and forth for about fifteen minutes, and they held their breath each time they went past. Bolt fought to keep a stoic reserve as the adrenaline wore off; her open wound was starting to really sting. Once they were confident their pursuers had given up for now, after five minutes without being troubled, they began to relax.

"Hold up your arm, let me see the wound." Dawn started, sitting up.

"What? This? It's nothing." Bolt mumbled through gritted teeth. Dawn rolled her eyes and forcibly held the pegasus' arm aloft with her magic, and leaned in closer to inspect the site of the arrow's penetration. Spectra squeaked in protest, but the unicorn ignored her. The arrowhead was still buried inside, but it looked like a fairly clean incision. If only she could just... "_AAGH!_" Bolt screamed as Dawn took an etherial grip of the flint and yanked it out. Blood began to trickle from the wound and drip down her arm.

"Hold still..." Dawn closed her eyes and sank into deep concentration. Bolt just grimaced and did her best to follow doctor's orders. She could see Dawn's horn and the wound glowing faintly, and felt the strangest feeling in her upper arm; like the muscles were moving themselves, like something was twitching in there. This continued for a moment, until Dawn broke her reserve and panted. "I did the best I could, medical magic is tricky. It's still going to bleed a little, but I should have fixed the worst of the muscle damage. As long as you don't strain it too hard, it should be back to normal in a day or two."

"Thanks, I guess..." the pegasus gave her arm a flex. It definitely felt more capable, but still stung fiercely. Dawn sighed and gazed out the side of the tree, back at the city. "What's wrong? Are they coming back?" Bolt leaned in to get a look too.

"No, it's just... I'm just thinking, what now?" She folded her arms and sat back. "After your little outburst, I can only guess we've been outlawed on the spot, and at the worst possible time."

"Hah, yeah, I guess my uh... my pride got the best of me..." Spectra chuckled nervously. Dawn glared.

"Your 'pride getting the best of you' could have dire consequences for all of Equestria! The Priestess was depending on you to organise her counter attack, and now she wants your head! When the horde gets here, they'll have Canterlot on a silver platter!" Dawn's frustration began to make itself apparent in her tone. Bolt bit her lip for a moment.

"Unless..." _Tell me she's not._ "Unless _we_ can organise some kind of defence!" _She is..._ "Think about it! If we can get hold of a big enough militia..." Dawn just glazed over as Bolt started to ramble on about her grand scheme. _Everypony I talk to today is crazy! I try to point out just how hosed we are because she just had to mouth off to the High Sun Priestess of all ponies, and she's not even fazed! Just how far is her head in the clouds? _The pegasus was gesturing tactical maneuvers with her hands while Dawn continued to boggle vacantly. _Got to give her credit for the optimism, though._ "... and that's how you treat a broken wing. Wait, that wasn't my point..."

"Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Have I stopped to tell you just how _insane_ your idea is?"

"Have you got a better one?" Bolt folded her arms. Dawn stopped in her tracks; gears whirred in her head as she contemplated the proposition. She was reluctant to admit it, even to herself, but it was the only forthcoming plan, and the only real hope.

"It's... it's..." She hesitated. "It's an extremely long shot, but it just might work..." A smug grin shot across Bolt's face, and Dawn was as quick to continue. "... but we'll need to think it out first. We need to earn the public's trust somewhere, which won't be easy with the Priestess trying to hunt us down."

"How about the south? They only pay attention to Canterlot if it really matters, and if it's between a gryphon invasion and us, I'd say we're not a high priority."

"Pardon me for not being the 'tactical genius' here, but isn't the front the other way?"

"You can try and raise a militia from right under the Priestess' nose if you like, but..."

"Alright, alright."

"We can plan more on the road. Right now, we need to get moving. Ponyville is at least a day's walk, and daytime's a-wastin'." Bolt confirmed that the coast was clear one more time, before shuffling out of the tree. She winced when she moved her arm. _Damn, still tender._

* * *

><p>Understanding Spectra's decision requires a little grounding in the geography and sociology of Ancient Equestria. The land was traditionally bounded by four geographic features: the Dragon mountains and Everfree Forest to the west and southwest, and the Bridlantic sea and Horsehead mountains to the northeast and east. The Whitetail Wood sits approximately in the middle of this corridor, and it is here that ponies first settled, and founded the city of Canterlot. Over time, the population grew, and ponies began to explore and settle areas outside their homeland. Due to the valley-like nature of the land, there were only two directions they could reasonably move, and this dichotomy defines the cultural makeup of Equestria.<p>

The northern region of Equestria, from the Whitetail Wood up to the coast, is climatically inviting; its mild, oceanic climate is ideal for farming, and settlers quickly took root here. However, this put them in the way of another burgeoning young realm; the gryphon kingdoms. This territory has always been at the southern tip of the gryphons' range, and they would traditionally nest there during the summer, when the tundra to the north became too harsh even for them. As pony settlements in the region grew, there was less room for gryphons to nest, resulting in friction. Over decades, this friction polarised the two races: pony settlements militarised, turning from simple villages to heavily garrisoned fortresses, and gryphon clans increasingly turned to pillaging and piracy, setting up the cycle of marauding hordes.

The southern region stretched from Whitetail Wood to the Everfree Forest, and is marked by an entirely different set of pressures. This inland area lacked competition, and ponies here were free to settle as they pleased; however, the climate was far more extreme. Rain was often scarce, accentuating the heat of summer, and what little water was available froze up entirely in winter. This was the basis of the first real racial separator in pony society. Unicorn magic is affected by the cold, and pegasus flight, which relies heavily on airborne water vapour, was hampered in times of drought. The weather didn't fully handicap their abilities, but these inconveniences were enough to give the more hardworking earth ponies the edge. Most pegasi decided instead to settle in the sky, forming cloud cities such as Cloudsdale; unicorns, lacking that option too, just returned to the heartland and north, leaving the south primarily settled by earth ponies.

This contributed greatly to the attitude of the ponies of the south, and hence to Spectra's logic. The earth ponies of the south often felt that they were made of sterner stuff than unicorns and pegasi, and thought themselves superior when the 'fancy powers' were removed from the equation, as happens in the south. However, this was far from represented in Equestria's class structure - the ruling class of clergy and nobles was almost exclusively unicorns, and the officer and professional classes were usually reserved for pegasi; earth ponies made up the majority of the working class. This unfortunately associated class with race, giving a sectarian edge to class conflicts. Usually, this manifested as a tendency for southern ponies to take decrees from Canterlot with a pinch of salt; though at times it has escalated to riots and threats of secession. Spectra's idea was that this contempt for the law would give them safe haven at the very least, and ideally they could rustle up an army if they could convince enough ponies to look at the bigger picture.


	3. Or Forever Hold Your Peace

Twilight blinked, pausing for breath. _Way to infodump, book. I hope it doesn't keep doing this..._ "Everypony get all that?"

"Now wait just one cotton-pickin' minute," Applejack sat up. "Ah been trying to figure this out for five whole minutes now, and ah _still_ don't get what these 'hand' things are supposed to be, or how ponies are supposed to walk on two legs!"

"Maybe something like this?" Pinkie threw her body up to balance on her hind legs, lurching forward a couple of steps before landing flat on her face.

"It's just a story guys, it doesn't have to all make perfect sense. Now if I could get on with it..."

* * *

><p>It was mid-afternoon the next day when the travellers reached Ponyville. Typically for the back end of summer, the heat was sweltering; dense forest gradually gave way to wide open plains, leaving the weary ponies without shelter as they approached the town. Unfortunately for them, their fatigue cost them valuable time. By the time Ponyville came into view, simple settlers weren't the only figures they could see wandering around. A pair of pegasus ponies decked out in Canterlot armour, who must have travelled through the night, were wandering between homes and businesses with a stack of posters, putting them up on walls and consulting passers by. Getting as close to the town as they could, they hid behind a hay bale about a hundred yards from the first cottage while they weighed up their options.<p>

"I'm not sure if this is such a good idea, Bolt..."

"It's risky... but we need to eat." While Spectra surveyed the town, Dawn reached over her shoulder to pull out some of the hay. She thought they were sitting behind a bundle of food, only to find soil and bugs mixed into the chaff - this hay wasn't destined for dining. "What was that?" Bolt looked over to see what the noise was. The unicorn tossed away the handful of grass.

"Bleh... nothing, never mind."

"I think I'm fast enough to get in and out without anypony seeing me..." Spectra's stomach punctuated her contemplation with a rumble.

"But you're definitely not running at full speed right now."

"... right."

"I think, we should approach this more delicately." Dawn leaned her head forward, her horn flashing for a moment, and she began to fade from view.

"Dawn? Dawn!" Bolt panicked, reaching forward to grab the air where she was, grabbing instead a shoulder and forearm.

"Relax, I'm right here. This is a partial invisibility spell. Right now, I won't be able to keep it up for very long, but I should be able to grab _something_ and get away before it runs out. You get up on a roof and keep an eye out in case anything gets hairy."

"Got it." Spectra checked that the coast was clear, before lunging in a flight-aided sprint to the nearest cottage. She proned against the wall and waited a moment. She repeated the process twice more, until she found a stone building overlooking the marketplace to perch on. In the mean time, Dawn walked steadily under the cover of her spell towards the town. She kept as best she could to the grass to mask the sound of her hoofsteps. Fortunately, most of the town was on a siesta at this time of day, so the marketplace was sleepy and secluded; in the case of one merchant, sleepy in the literal sense. An apple stall in the middle of the square was tended by a lone pony with their wide-brimmed hat pulled down and their head on the table, napping in the sun. After a moments' hesitation, Dawn crept from hiding, the midday sun casting a faint shadow under her position, like that of a thin cloud. She stood for a moment, making sure that nopony else was watching the stall from across the plaza. Gingerly, she began to take her pick of the apples. One by one, she picked them carefully from the basket, the invisibility spell encompassing them as she took them in her hand, and deposited them into her pocket. _Come on, come on, hurry up, this is no time to be picky!_ Spectra thought, watching the apples float up and disappear at a leisurely pace.

Tense minutes passed. The pegasus chewed on the ledge she clung to, beads of cold sweat dripping from her maneline. One deep robe pocket full, Dawn began to pile fruit into the other. She paid painstaking attention to the way the remaining fruit sat in their barrels - she wanted to ensure they looked as much like before as possible. Unfortunately, she was paying so much attention to this detail that she missed another, which soon made itself apparent. From the next apple she picked slithered a wriggling, writhing worm. She felt something slide against her thumb, and jerked her hand back, dropping the apple. She stifled her shocked squeak. The apple split neatly in two along the wormhole when it hit the cobblestone. The merchant shook awake from the sound. Her hat slipped to the back of her head as she looked around in a mild panic, almost meerkat-like.

"Huh... what the hay?" Dawn backed up slowly. Hoping to avoid drawing further attention to herself. She felt a firm _thunk_ against her side, and saw the ground rapidly disappearing beneath her. Bolt had grabbed her and was getting out of dodge with her before anyone else noticed. The apple merchant, not entirely sure what had just happened, just looked around, befuddled. She looked over the edge of the stall to find the split apple and the worm laying on the ground. "Consarned worms..."

Fortunately, nopony else had quick enough to spot more than just a multicoloured blur, and the pair landed safely behind the next building, Dawn's invisibility spell wearing off, revealing one pocket weighed down heavily with apples. With just a nod, they agreed they had to put some distance between themselves and the town. There was a wooded knoll fifty yards away, down an empty back street and across a small stream. Their target in sight, they took off in a sprint. Dawn skidded to a halt by a poster to examine it - it was one of the ones she had seen earlier. It wasn't long before Spectra grabbed her shoulder to pull her onward. The unicorn ripped the poster from the wall to read while she followed. _A message from the High Sun Priestess at Canterlot, _it read. _WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE, for the crimes MURDER MOST HEINOUS and HIGH TREASON: two young adult mares, one unicorn, lilac of coat and indigo of mane, and one pegasus, cyan of coat and of rainbow mane. Known as former solar Neophyte VENUS DAWN and former captain of the Cloudsdale city guard BOLT SPECTRA. The wanted are considered to be outside the protection of the law, and collaborators can expect to b-_ Her concentration was broken by a loud _crunch_ - she looked up to find Bolt in mid-air, hoof outstretched in a flying kick. Her hoof had just connected with a guardspony's head; the colt was knocked out cold from the impact. He had just rounded a bend on to the back street.

"Come _on_, we haven't got time!" The pair raced from the end of the path, leaping across the stream in a single bound. They carried on into the forest, and kept running after they hit the tree line. They didn't stop to catch their breath until the town had disappeared behind the trunks of densely packed trees. They stumbled to a halt in a small clearing in the dense tree cover, relatively certain that they were not being pursued.

"Is this... the Everfree... Forest?" Dawn panted, clutching the crumpled remains of the poster.

"I think so... the edge of it anyway." Spectra held her hand under Dawn's pocket, just in time to catch a falling apple, and happily tucked in while the unicorn caught her breath. "I'm sure it goes on a lot further than this..." Once finished with the first apple, she casually flicked the core into the undergrowth. The rustling initiated further rustling, as if something in the bushes was disturbed. She knelt down and approached the bush, curious. Her curiosity was rewarded with a startled rabbit jumping out at her and carrying on past. She fell backwards in surprise. Dawn just giggled. However, the rabbit wasn't the only thing in the bush that was disturbed. The two ponies pricked their ears when they heard a soft hissing, and saw the swaying of shrubs and grass, from something slowly moving in front of them. Spectra edged back a little, as into the clearing slithered an eight foot long, thick as a thigh, black and brown snake, rearing its head up to get a look at the two interlopers.

"Why... did it have to be _snakes_?" Dawn trembled, starting to step backwards. Her retreat was blocked when a rabbit - the very same one that had jumped out and startled Bolt a moment ago - parked itself just behind her hoof, and she tumbled backwards. The blow to her back from the ground winded her. She looked up just in time to see a figure swoop down in front of them, silhouetted against the sun - two broad wings on an equine form, the trails of a long and flowing mane and tail, and a flowing robe to match. The silhouette landed with a _thud _on the ground in the middle of the clearing, its wings folding behind it. Without the intense light behind it, colours and details became apparent - the figure was femenine, her face shrouded underneath the fringe her pale pink mane, which extended to the ground. Once all of her entourage of pastel green cloth and cream yellow feathers had settled, she angled her head up, her nose pushing the fringe out of the way, revealing her saturated teal eyes. Her expression was stern - by no means wrathful, but quite serious. As she rose to her hooves, she propped herself up by a long, knobbly wooden staff. As she stood, the snake slithered up to her and coiled around the staff, and the rabbit hopped up to her, and awkwardly climbed her robes to perch on her shoulder while she stared down the trespassers in silence. "Wh... who are you?" Dawn shivered, trying to crawl backwards. _Ouch, that was a nettle..._ No response, just a steely gaze. "I asked who are you!" Still nothing. "_Speak!_"

"Is it...? Could it be?" Bolt whispered.

"Be what?" Dawn leant over, rubbing her hand in the grass, replying in a similarly harsh whisper.

"Wingscale!"

"I... what?"

"Have you never heard? Pax Wingscale, the Beastmistress of the Everfree Forest?" A furrowed brow answered Spectra's question. "Right. Friends with books. There's a myth that a mare who lives in th-" Her tale was interrupted when the other pegasus thumped her staff against the ground. The snake hissed at the pair. "Yeah, what do you want?" Bolt snapped. Wingscale just crossed her arms and held her judging gaze.

"I.. don't think she's too happy about us being here." Dawn whispered, sitting up, continuing to rub grass on her stung hand. Spectra rose to her hooves and brushed herself off.

"Okay then! We'll just be on our weAAH!" Again, she was cut off, this time by a trio of starlings, swooping down from a nearby tree and flocking to her face. The birds knocked her off balance, and in her panic, she fell over again. Dawn couldn't help but chuckle as she stood, and even Wingscale cracked a wry smile. The unicorn thought for a moment, and decided to try a different tack. With a little bow, she addressed the stranger more courteously, if formally - such was her tutelage.

"Good day. I am Venus Dawn of Canterlot, and this..." she looked down at her companion, who was still shooing away birds while attempting to get up. "... is my, uh, friend, Bolt Spectrum. I must apologise if we are trespassing, but we are currently fleeing persecution, and needed a place to hide." Wingscale's expression lightened a little, raising her nose to level. Dawn tried to smile, but couldn't help but wince. She still held one arm behind her back, her fingers kneading over her palm in an attempt to reduce the pain of the sting. The pegasus spotted this, and upon seeing the unicorn's expression, she looked toward the hidden arm, extending hers with an open hand. It took Dawn a moment or two to decipher the meaning of this gesture. Once she had, she reluctantly pulled hers in front of her. Pax sauntered gracefully up to her, and rather than shaking the hand as the unicorn expected her to, she went to inspect it, noting the minor pale blisters from the nettle sting. With just an aside glance, the bunny on her shoulder hopped off and darted into the bushes, returning quickly with a large leaf in its mouth, which it deposited at the pegasus' feet. She picked it up and placed it on Dawn's palm over the sting. "A leaf?" She tilted her head, closing her hand and rubbing it a little when it dawned on her. "A leaf! Dock leaves! Of course... thank you!" The pegasus smiled sweetly back at her, almost a hint of shyness in her expression. Without so much as a subtle wrist flick, she instructed the starlings to back off of Bolt.

"Okay, took care of the..." she stood up picking feathers (not her own) from her mane, trying in vain to claim brash triumph from her recovery. "... birds. What."

"Oh, I just decided to try a bit of finesse." Dawn chuckled, wearing the faintest of smug grins. "Seems she reacts better to friendly conversation than your... tactical genius."

"Yeah, yeah..."


	4. A Roll In The Hay

"But what happened to the apple merchant? Did she get 'em back? What happens?" Applejack jigged in place, leaning forward anxiously. Rainbow Dash just giggled, the earth pony's hat falling off the side of her head, flipping around and landing on Fluttershy's head. She didn't even notice until Applejack picked up the hat again, such was her focus on the story through the last few minutes.

"Cool your jets, AJ. We'll find out soon enough..."

* * *

><p>"Can you talk?" Dawn asked. Wingscale shook her head. "Well, why not?" The response was a shrug. Dawn chuckled, turning to Bolt. "And you said I was quiet." The other pegasus was dozing off next to the campfire, and responded with little more than a lazy murmur. Night had fallen, and Dawn and Spectra were being accommodated by their new friend, sleeping in the forest under the protection of her pets, as Dawn called them. Far from being the brutal "Beastmistress" of legend and rumour that Spectra spoke of, Wingscale was a gentle soul. Despite being mute, she had demonstrated a remarkable ability to communicate with the animals of the forest, and lived happily with them. She also, when times called upon it, organised them to defend the forest from intruders, which is what likely spawned her violent reputation. Dawn quickly figured out a way of conversing with her without the need for verbal response. It was simply a case of asking the right questions; those that could be answered by nodding, shaking her head, shrugging or pointing. Occasionally she turned up a surprise or two, by having a small passing creature bring something to her, or just careful positioning and timing. Wingscale's physical mannerisms were eloquent and graceful like that.<p>

This intrinsic awareness of her surroundings also let her know immediately that something was wrong. Her ears perked up and she looked around. One ear twitched, and she got up and threw the rest of her water on to the campfire. Taking the hint, Dawn shoved Spectra awake. Pax took off into the sky, blowing the embers around in her wake, in turn making Bolt awaken to the irritant scent of ash.

"What..." she coughed. "What's going on?" Dawn replied in hushed tones.

"Something's up. I think Wingscale heard something." As if on cue, the other pegasus dropped back down from her bird's eye view. She ushered the two in an arbitrary direction, their target unclear under the moonlight. Dawn led a bleary eyed Spectra along the approximate path, continuing into the denser trees. She brought up a quick torch spell, and her horn glowed faintly. It was just to help them see where they were going; she kept it dim and low to conceal the light as much as possible. A few moments of running woke the pegasus up enough to keep pace by herself. She kept jogging on hoof - the stand was too dense to open her wings and fly ahead.

Back at the campsite, Wingscale crouched by the extinguished campfire, eyes trained on the dim distance. Second by second, a noise grew louder. It was undetectable to all but the most well-trained of ears at this range; and the serenity of the forest had trained hers pretty well. Rustling. Shouting. Clattering. And then something she had not anticipated - crackling. Through the trees there was a faint but growing glow, and smoke began to rise in the distance. The crackling of fire. The bounty hunters were trying to burn the fugitives out of the forest. She gasped - this shot a gaping hole in her plan. With the trees burning, the animals would scatter, leaving her to defend herself. Rather than give the pursuers anything else to follow, she took to the air again, gliding in the direction she sent her partners in.

Following them wasn't hard - they clearly weren't very good at this whole "on the run" thing. All she had to do was follow the rustling lamp. She picked a minor clearing to drop down into, and grabbed both by the collars of their tunics, yanking them back. When Spectra yelped in surprise, she covered her mouth. With her free hand she flicked Dawn's horn. The sharp _pang_ caused her enough distraction to extinguish the ethereal light. Holding the two in surprise, she waited and listened. It was hard to make out the progress of the hunters over the panting of the other ponies, but fairly certain that their trail had gone cold, she began to walk. Walking, not running, to curtail the noise. The other two hesitantly followed suit. At one point Bolt began to speak, but was quickly met with a finger to the mouth. They proceeded in silence for a number of minutes, until the forest began to open out and the trees became less dense. They also became more regular in pattern, and more homogeneous in nature. It only struck Dawn after another few minutes, when an underripe apple fell from a tree and bounced off her head, that they were on a farm. She grabbed her two friends' arms to stop them and leaned in to collaborate, speaking in barely over a harsh whisper;

"We're on a farm or plantation of some kind. There's going to be a barn nearby, we could hide there!" Bolt's face was contorting into an expression of protest, but before she could voice her concerns, noises rang out over the quiet orchard. Faint for the time being, but growing in intensity; rustling. Shouting. Clattering. "Come on, we're running out of time!" The two pegasi nodded. Wingscale swiftly ascended above the canopy to get a sense of direction, dropped down again just as quickly. She started in a direction that cut across the lines of trees, tugging at her companions to follow her.

The barn door was locked, though for two pegasi, this was no issue. Spectra forced entry through the open window above the door and unlocked the barn from the inside. Dawn and Wingscale hurried inside. With just the moonlight to guide them, they frantically clambered into the loft and buried themselves in hay.

"What now?"

"We wait."

"Aww... can't we like, go fight them or something?"

"You and what army?"

"I can tak-"

"No, Bolt. No you can't."

"_Hmph_."

Minutes ticked by. An observant eye would notice a significant difference in the direction of the moonlight's shadows over the time they were there, anxiously waiting for a sign that their stalkers had passed them by. All three were startled by a loud _smack_, and the thud of the door swinging open. Its uneasy hinges creaked as the door stuttered back on the rebound. All their vision would tell them from under the hay was that whoever entered had a lamp.

"Now what in tarnation is all this racket about?" A female voice called out. There were some heavy hoofsteps. Dawn's heart leaped into her mouth. The few seconds of silence that followed felt like hours. "Hmm... nah. Nothin' in here. Maybe they're out in the or- oh, there they are!" The unicorn's relief was short-lived. She prepared for assault... but nothing came. Confused, she pushed her head up a tiny bit so her eye had a clear view of the door. The doorway was empty, but through it she could see the back of a figure. It had feminine curves, though a hat was the only readily apparent detail. There was a conversation, too distant to be clearly heard, but it was heated. Then, _crunch_. In a jerking movement, the figure lurched forward, and the conversation died down. Dawn could hear running, but the pony she was watching stood still. After another few moments of silence, the mare returned to the barn door. "And _stay _out!" she called back across the orchard. She kicked the door shut, and turned up to face the loft. "Alright, ya'll can come out now!" _Wh- wait, what? You're kidding me! _"Ah know you're in there, ah saw ya'll comin' in!" She just blinked and laid as still as she could. The behatted farm pony sighed and wandered under the loft. No sooner had Dawn seen her disappear from view, the rest of the barn started to slip from view to be replaced by... the ceiling? This and the sudden downward lurch confused her as much as it surprised her. She felt a strong _thud_ on her back and saw the earth pony standing next to her. She had pulled out a cord that released all the hay from the loft, sending them all tumbling to the floor. "Ah told ya ah saw you," the farm pony standing over them smirked. It was the apple merchant from earlier.

_Well, jig's up..._ Dawn thought to herself, laying in the big pile of hay and ponies. Seeing motion out of the corner of her eye, she winced and braced herself, only for nothing to happen. She turned and saw a gloved hand outstretched to her, offering her help to her hooves.

"Wh... what?" She boggled, reluctantly taking the hand. The stranger pulled firmly, helping the unicorn to her hooves in a single motion. She had a warm smile on her face, with a grass stalk hanging from her lip.

"Name's Rose Calvade. And ah believe..." she fumbled with her pocket, pulling out a scrunched up piece of paper. She shook it out in front of her, revealing it to be one of the "Wanted" posters she had seen earlier. "... this is you." Dawn was dumbstruck.

"I... wh... hahh-ow..." Dawn struggled to comprehend this. The earth pony chuckled, folding her arms.

"Ah saw ya'll hidin' in mah barn and figured you had a few ponies after you. So, I came to see what was up, and got to buck some loudmouthed bounty hunter in the face!"

"Wait... you're _not _going to turn us in?"

"Aw, hay, no!" Rose chuckled, offering her hand to Spectra, the pegasus spitting out hay and wriggling free of the pile. "Most o' the time, when they say they're lookin' for some traitor or murderer or whatever, they're just makin' it up so they can take care o' whoever they don't like. Ol' airheads wouldn't know an honest day's work if it came up and bit 'em in the tail." The unicorn chuckled in nervous relief. Bolt staggered to her feet and brushed herself off.

"Awesome, that's just the 'tude we came to Ponyville for." Bolt was alert and eager as soon as she was upright.

"Huh?" Calvade quirked a brow as she helped the other pegasus free of the hay. Dawn thumped Spectra lightly on the arm.

"Bolt, manners!"

"Hey, ah'm interested now, let the featherbrain talk!" Rose folded her arms again and leaned against the wall, with a little mischievous smile. Bolt narrowed her eyes and smirked in response, her look seeming to say, _is that a challenge?_

"Alright. Right now, there's this gryphon horde rampaging around up north..." The grin slid from the earth pony's face, and she rolled her eyes. Spectra's tone similarly lost cheer. "... now if you'll listen for a sec? We're not just some windbag blow-ins, okay? This horde is the worst we've ever seen. It's making a beeline for Canterlot, and completely destroying any pony towns in their way. Burned to the ground kind of destroyed. I wasn't able to talk about it much before I had to run, but if I had to guess, they mean conquest at the very least. Possibly genocide." Calvade's eyes widened. "And to make things worse, the Priestess thinks we killed one of her students, when she's really a spy! So " Rose's jaw hung open a little, the grass stalk tumbling freely to the ground. "We came here to raise an army to defend Equestria, because that's just what they're _not _doing in Canterlot."

"Well I'll be... that's some pickle you've gone and made for yerselves. I'll tell you what though, you gone and hid in the right barn, cos ah think ah can help ya'll get there."

"Really?" Dawn cocked her head incredulously. Calvade replaced the grass stalk before continuing.

"See, 'round Ponyville there's a few names ponies just plain ol' trust. Lucky for you, half o' this town is built on mah momma's sweat 'n toil. Ah could walk into town tomorrow, say the sky was fallin', and ponies'd start diggin'. Course ah'd never do somethin' silly like that, but if what you're tellin' me is true, I could have you a militia ready to kick some gryphon tail within a week."

"_Alright!_" Bolt fisted the air triumphantly.

"On one condition."

"I knew it wouldn't be that simple." Dawn chimed in.

"Ah won't be able to raise hell by mahself. I'll need something from the front lines as proof."

"We've... got nothing..." Dawn sighed.

"... yet." Spectra continued, smirking, flaring her wings out. "I can get you more than enough proof by morning."

"Ya sure?"

"Positive." The pegasus spat in her hand, holding it out to the earth pony with a confident smile. Dawn winced.

"Missy." Rose spat the grass stalk away, and responded in kind, spitting in her palm and firmly shaking Bolt's. "You got yourself a deal." Their eyes met with a stern, almost competitive fixation. While she witnessed the agreement, she couldn't help but think to herself; _all the ponies in this town are CRAZY._


	5. Diamond In The Rough

"Will you two pipe down? I'm _trying_ to listen to the story!" Rarity whacked Applejack with the back of her hoof, her hat tumbling off. Her and Rainbow Dash appeared to be arguing amongst themselves over something. "What are you bickering about anyway?" The pegasus leaned around to answer.

"We're betting over whether Bolt makes it back or not!"

"She is _toast_, sister!"

"No way!" Dash protested. "She's totally gonna come back with... with a gryphon head or something!"

"_Ahem_." Twilight coughed. "If you want to continue this... discussion, you can do it outside." Her horn glowed, and the front door swung open at her command. The wind was still howling, and an icy chill invaded the room. Half a foot of snow poured in the door.

"Uhm... we'll be good!"

"Yeah! We're done."

"I'm sure." Twilight chuckled, closing the door again, shoving most of the snow back out.

* * *

><p>Spectra was off like a shot. They had eaten and rested a little, but nonetheless there was a gruelling journey ahead of her.<p>

"Do you think she'll make it?" Dawn mused, watching the pegasus fly off into the night, disappearing over the horizon quickly, unencumbered by ground-bound companions.

"I... ah hope she does." Calvade sighed, adjusting her hat. Wingscale beat her wings uneasily, before soaring up to the barn roof, gazing off into the distance in the direction of the forest. There was still some smoke rising from that direction. "S'up with her?" Rose queried as she watched this. "She ain't said a word all night."

"She's mute, from what I can tell. She can understand us, she just can't talk, or won't talk."

"Heh. Good for keepin' secrets then."

"That's... one way of looking at it, I suppose. Bolt said she was the 'Beastmistress of the Everfree Forest' or something like that. I've never heard of her, I don't know if it's just an old mare's tale, or..."

"Ah heard a few ponies talkin' about someone in the forest one time. Didn't pay 'em much heed, since ah figured anyone who lived there'd get eaten alive in no time."

"Funny you should mention that. She seemed to have some sort of harmony with the animals in the forest that I couldn't get my head around. It's probably why she looks so worried right now. Remember those bounty hunters you fought off earlier? They chased us out of the forest by burning it." Rose winced at the mention.

"Mighty troublin' alright... but ah don't think there's much we can do 'bout it."

"Inde-" A rustle caught Dawn's attention. It sounded... close. She whispered. "Did you hear that?"

"Sure did." Rose grabbed a shovel and a lantern from the wall, and set off in the direction of the noise - a shed not far from the barn. She kicked open the door, which nearly flew clean off the hinges from the force (in any case it looked like the door probably wouldn't close again), and charged inside to confront the intruder. There, standing by a chest at the back of the shed, was a unicorn, almost entirely covered up in black, masking them against the background; only a horn and a pair of blue eyes were visible when they looked over their shoulder. "Gotcha! Now off with the hood, or ol' Betsy here is gonna make purdy good buddies with yer teeth!" The stranger simply batted their eyes and turned fully to face the earth pony. Calvade was incensed. "Ya hear me? Show your face! _Now!_" The unicorn wordlessly crossed their arms and tilted their head a little. This was enough to provoke the farmer into a full-on charge, and when Dawn entered, all she could do was watch. The intruder met Calvade's screaming charge with a calm stroll, and an instant before contact, vanishing. She skidded to a halt, her battle cry dying off like a record player losing power, with just a questioning rise in tone at the end. She looked around for a moment, baffled, before emitting a sharp squeal, most unlike her. The stranger had reappeared behind her. She could feel something long and cold pressed to her neck. She guessed it was sharp aswell. A soft, smooth, femenine voice spoke in her ear; authoritative, but cool and calm.

"Now, drop the shovel before somepony gets hurt." Calvade hesitantly held out the tool and dropped it, leaving her hands open in front of her. "Good. If there are no further interruptions..." The stranger pulled the object away from her neck; it was a dagger, about a foot long, ornately engraved and studded with jewels. "...I shall be on my_AHH_!" She lurched forward, throwing her weapon across the room and knocking her down over her hostage. The earth pony quickly threw her off; she landed a yard or so away, groaning and squirming. Dawn stood across the room, her horn enshrouded in a tiny amount of faint smoke. Rose sat up, panting a little.

"Stun spell. She'll be fine in about five minutes." Dawn explained, giving a little puff to blow away the smoke. Calvade nodded and quickly rose to her hooves, checking the chest for stolen goods. Dawn saw her put a hand to her mouth when she got a look inside. She quickly jogged over to get a look. "What's wrong? What did she steal?"

"Uhm..." Rose held the chest's lid open just a little more for the unicorn to get a view of its contents. "... nothin'." There was a black velvet bag in the chest. Dawn fumbled around with it, and its contents spilled out across the chest: a dozen of some of the finest cut gemstones she had ever seen.

"I... don't get it. Why would a thief break in and _leave behind_ valuables?"

"Well, strictly speakin' she ain't a thief..." Dawn furrowed her brow quizzically. "... you just done gone and knocked out the Diamond Crusader."

"The what? Oh, don't tell me this is _another_ urban legend come to life..."

"Who ya callin' urban?" Rose chuckled, giving Dawn a playful thump on the arm. "Anywho, the Diamond Crusader is a mysterious vigilante who breaks into the houses of the poor of Ponyville at night and leaves behind jewels like this, which is where she gets the name. Nopony knows where she done got the darn things in the first place, though all ah can think is that she either digs 'em up or steals 'em from the rich. Not that they ever miss 'em, what with the troves some of 'em are sittin' on. Only thing is, nopony's ever seen her face to face before, so nopony knows who she really is. For all ah know this coulda just been some thief."

"Well." Dawn cracked her knuckles. "Here we have a golden opportunity for some answers." She strolled over to the Crusader's unconscious body, and pulled it over to the chest to sit her up. Slowly, carefully, she pulled off the headwrap to reveal the face underneath. Beneath the silken black fabric was a face of soft, white fur, and some of the most elegantly kept purple hair. With a moment for this to sink in, Dawn gasped, and fell backwards in shock. "Wh- this doesn't make any sense! This... this is Baroness Corundum!"

"Th- you _what? _Are you sure?"

"Positive... the Priestess would always parade her students around the viceroys of outlying territories when they came to visit..." She rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't imagining this. "... something's definitely up here. We're going to need to talk."

* * *

><p>"Uuughhh... talk about getting your beauty sl<em>AH<em>!" the Baroness awoke, clutching her head, to the unexpected sight of the same ponies that jumped her. She patted her face for a moment, realising that her disguise was gone. She looked to her two captors, then back at her abandoned headdress, then back up to them. "I think it's time I wasn't here..." she remarked, deadpan, before disappearing - fading to nothing in an instant. Neither the earth pony nor the other unicorn said anything. Seconds later, there was a _thump_ noise, and the Baroness reappeared just in time to smack against the empty space in the doorway and fall over backwards.

"Magical wall. You're not going anywhere." Dawn smirked, triumphantly. Corundum raised an eyebrow as she sat up. Calvade just chewed on a stalk of grass, sat atop the chest the gems were deposited in.

"Clever." She fiddled with her gloves and looked around the room. "So what are you after? Thought I stole something? Maybe you want to score some kind of reward? Out me, perhaps? I can't see anything you might want being terribly popular."

"Answers." Dawn folded her arms. The Baroness found herself a trunk to sit on, crossing her legs.

"Ah, but the want of answers stipulates questions! I do hope you had thought of that before you went and caught the neighbourhood wealth redistributor." The unicorns exchanged glances; one castigating, the other mischievous.

"Okay, first let's clarify something. You are both the Diamond Crusader _and_ Baroness Corundum."

"That's an observation darling, not a question."

"... I have to ask, why? Why are you sneaking around ponies' houses at night leaving cut gemstones around?"

"Now that is a question, and a good one at that! Let me tell you a tale..."

"Aw hay, make it quick, we ain't got all night!" Rose called from the other side of the room. Corundum coughed.

"... which should be brief if I am without interruption. As you know, I am a member of the Equestrian nobility; I inherited my title from my father, who was the Baron Corundum until only a few years ago when he passed away. The domain he left me - Ponyville and its hinterland - was in a sorry state. Since its founding, the nobility of the town has been self-interested, as is the culture of the nobles of Equestria, and cared more for their own comfort than for the survival of the town. I just couldn't bear to see the plebians suffer under the heels of my peers, but I was barred from open action by my title - if I were to publicly use my own funds to better the lives of ponies of Ponyville, I would be stripped of my position in the gentry and lose the means to continue such action. So I happened upon an idea. One thing that comes quite naturally to me is using my magic to locate gemstones, and as such I normally have more of them than I know what to do with. So, training my magic for disguise - which wasn't a stretch, given my hobby of tailoring for fashion - and adopting the guise of an anonymous thief, I began to 'steal' my own riches in a highly portable, durable form..." she slid another velvet bag from her sleeve, and from it she pulled a ruby that she spun on her finger. "...and leave them in the possession of those who I thought needed them far more than I."

"And that's how we ended up with the Diamond Crusader?"

"If that's what the current popular moniker is, then yes. As stated, I never chose one for myself. Are there any more questions, or are you going to let me go about my business now?"

"Well there is one that springs to mind, why are you telling us about your secret identity so readily? I was kinda expecting to have to force it out of you."

"That's simple, dear. I know it's in neither of your best interests to out or kill me. Miss Calvade here..." she motioned to the earth pony, still chewing on the grass stalk, though it was noticeably shorter by now. "... being a Ponyvillian through and through, knows that if I disappear, then so do the little packages I deposit every so often. And you, Miss Dawn, would stand to gain nothing, and only callously deprive a townful of ponies hope. It probably wouldn't be above that snotty little blowhard Hornblende, but I can tell from what word I have heard filter out from the Priestess' gossip that you wouldn't forgive yourself if you did." She smiled knowingly. "I can also tell at a glance how trumped up these charges of treason are." Dawn's jaw just hung open. Rose rubbed her chin.

"Say, ah think ah might have something you could help us with."

"Oh?" The unicorn banked her head around with a cocked eyebrow. "I'm all ears, darling."


	6. Boom

"Rarity, are you crying?"

"No, I..." the unicorn sniffed and wiped her eye. She shook her head. "I'm fine. Honest!" She smiled, her expression to be met with a smirk and a quirked eyebrow from Twilight. "If I were you, I'd be more worried about Rainbow Dash. She appears to have, shall we say, lost focus." She pointed a hoof at the sleeping pegasus. Applejack shoved her, causing her to scramble awake.

"Actually Rainbow, I think you might want to listen to this part..."

* * *

><p>Flying solo, all of Equestria was Spectra's oyster. The pegasus' speed was unparalleled throughout the land, and had been part of her rapid rise to officer ranks in the Cloudsdale city guard. Even with Dawn keeping pace with magical means, she still had to hold back; but now, she could really get the lead out. An hour's endurance flying (as opposed to a flying sprint, which would be many times the speed, but exhaust her in minutes) took her from Ponyville to within visual range of Canterlot. She made sure to give the citadel a wide berth - she would be no good to anypony captured. It would be another half hour of flying before her objective came into view. In the distance, roaring, clattering and the faint smell of burning let her know the gryphon horde was close. She gulped and steeled herself as she descended from the clouds.<p>

Into view came a small hamlet, primarily built of thatched cottages, lit not by lanterns, but by loose fire. As she descended further, more details came into view; gryphons circling the village and raining down arrows, taking particular care to pick off any pegasi trying to escape through the air; ponies running around, screaming and attempting to flee, only to be cut down or forced back by the marauding gryphons advancing on the settlement. Bolt saw no time to lose, and immediately dived for the nearest gryphon archer. Taking him completely by surprise, she span him around by the arm and flung him towards another archer, stunning both of them. This alerted the other two nearby. She lingered for a moment while they took aim, lit only by the flames of the village below. She dashed up and away from the archers, far faster than they could crane their necks after her, and with a somersault, she positioned herself neatly between them. Before they could turn to her, she grabbed both their heads and cracked them together. Both of them fell to the ground unconscious. With the skies temporarily clear, she swept down to the ground to survey the scene.

She knew she was only there to get some evidence, but arriving when she did, she wasn't just going to abandon these innocent ponies. As she neared the surface, she accelerated downwards, hooves outstretched, aiming them at a gryphon foot soldier. In no less than a second, _crack_. The gryphon's upper body was crushed under the impact. The blow forced its head and shoulders firmly into the dirt, killing it instantly. She regained her balance and stepped off the body. The soldier's spear was tossed to the side. She grabbed it and twirled it for a moment, getting an idea of how it balanced in her hand. _This'll do._ With that thought, she darted to cover, lest she attract more attention. Her arm was still giving a little pang of pain every now and then.

_Okay Bolt, it's just you, a spear, and an entire army of angry, angry gryphons. No problem, right? Right?_ She began to panic a little. She kept sprinting between hiding spots, hoping to take a lunge at one of the barbarians as they passed. Luck was not on her side though - they were too numerous to be able to take down quickly. Before long they were herding the remaining villagers into the middle of the settlement, moving in for the kill. Reasoning that the odds were too stacked against her on the ground, she took to the sky. She hovered to a position about twenty yards off the ground and hurled the spear downwards. It careered, straight and true, to her target; the top of a gryphon's head. She couldn't see many details from here, but there was an audible crack and a squelch. It also caught the attention of everyone on the ground, which was just what she was hoping for. She wasn't sure what for yet, but that part of the plan was a work in progress.

"_Hey!_ Up here, you big beaky buzzards!" She yelled, much to the disgruntlement of the horde. The trapped ponies looked confused; they didn't know whether to be relieved or doubly afraid. Bolt could see some of the same posters fluttering around. Many of the grounded gryphons were rearing up to take off when another sound rang out.

"_Wait!_" the sound echoed around the town, gruff and harsh, commanding obedience from every decibel. The instruction cast silence across the whole crowd, gryphon and pony alike. A single gryphon leapt from the horde and rose to Bolt's level. Its form was muscular, only its narrow shoulders and wide hips belying the female voice that had called out a moment ago. Clutched in her claw was a weapon; the flickers of flames revealed its identity as a trident, plated with gold. Spectra's eyes narrowed as the gryphon closed in, calmly, not as if to attack, but to discuss.

"Aurum." Bolt uttered, staring down the gryphon warlady.

"Well, well. It's about time they sent someone interesting." The pair slowly circled each other in mid-air, hovering around with just the most idle beating of their wings. "Your reputation precedes you, 'captain'. Even if it's... heh. Not all good." The pegasus just kept up her glare. "I'm not gonna lie, I was kinda disappointed when I saw those wanted posters. It's like the Priestess wants to just gift-wrap Canterlot and everyone in it for me."

"Why are you doing this? Why Canterlot?"

"Why not?" the gryphon chuckled, almost casually. "Because it's there? Or maybe because you mules need to learn your place on the food chain?" Her tone pivoted from jovial to belligerent on a dime. "Y'know what all of you are in my eyes? Meat. Great, big, walking, talking bags of meat that don't know when to shut up and accept their fate. Except..." she drummed her claws on her beak, starting to draw out her words. "... except. Except the one, every once in a while, that knows how to fight back. Now and then I meet a pony with that little... predatory spark in their eye. The ones that don't just run like livestock when you charge 'em. The ones with a little fire in their bellies. Like they weren't born in the right place. And y'know what Spectra? I think I see it in you." Bolt's eyebrows raised for a moment, but slowly lowered again, retaining a stern expression. "You heard me. It's not like you could have found your way out here to play hero to these cattle unless you had at least a _little_ fighting spirit."

"Cut to the chase, Aurum. What do you want?"

"I'm gonna make you an offer, Spectra. You can join me. Ditch those walking steaks and join the winning team. All the spoils of war your own courage and drive deserves, and all you'd have to do is quit defending the main course." The pegasus lowered her eyes, looking within herself. "They don't want you anyway. Look at them. Cowering down there. Are they more afraid of me, or you? I don't know. But I suggest you look at the writing on the wall and tell me." Aurum pointed a talon towards one of the few intact posters on a wall. Spectra inhaled deeply, her eyes closing. The entire village was silent, save for the crackling of the burning houses, every living soul's gaze awaiting the pegasus' answer. Seconds dragged on for eternities. The gryphon warlady held out a front leg, claws outstretched. "Do we have a deal, Spectra?" Bolt opened her eyes, and hacked to the back of her throat. The sound brought a wry smile to Aurum's beak... until Spectra spat, not in her palm to seal the deal, but in Aurum's face.

"That's what I think of your deal." She barked. Aurum slowly wiped the saliva from her face and flicked it to the side.

"You're too loyal for your own good, meatbag..." the gryphon growled. She backed up a little and inhaled deeply, before screaming the order at the top of her lungs, "_Kill them all!_". Not needing to be told twice, the horde began to tear into the quivering mass of ponies. The pegasus immediately darted to the ground to reclaim her thrown spear. An unpleasant gush of blood accompanied its removal from the warrior's skull. A quick aside glance revealed Aurum to be chasing her; she reasoned that she didn't have time to stick around and help much, unless she wanted to join the massacred. Nonetheless, rather than sprint to safety, she began to lead the gryphon leader on a complicated trail, weaving around huts and trees, running rings around the bulkier flier. In the chase, she managed to make a number of passes on the melee in the middle of the village. She slashed and stabbed at the raiders as she passed, or alternatively, if she had a bigger lead on her pursuer, reached into the crowd and grabbed a pony, not so much hauling them to safety as throwing them a short distance and hoping they landed softly enough to make a run for it. She felt like her injured arm was going to come off, but her sense of duty forced her to push through the pain. In just minutes, there were none left to save - all of them had either been tossed into the trees outside the village, or lost at the claws of the ravenous horde.

As this grim fact became apparent to Spectra, she gulped. All of their attention would now be set on her. She looked again at the spear she had acquired. It was distinctive - its bronze head was engraved with gryphon markings, and the blade was highly curved; it was almost like an ornate glaive. _This'll do, _she thought, and took off full throttle for the south. However, she was not alone just yet - reflected in the metal of the spear she could see Aurum tailing her, trident in claw, tongue hanging out of her beak, almost hungrily. Bolt redoubled her efforts, flapping her tired wings as hard as she could. Her tighter turning circle was no good to her here, this was a test of pure speed. Acceleration was with her, but momentum wasn't. Unless...

With a mischievous smirk, she took a slight detour to her right; a mountain was coming up fast. She angled her trajectory up a little. This alone was enough to make the tailgating gryphon have to work just a little more, her weight punishing her more for the incline than the pegasus. Not satisfied with that, Bolt began to bank further to the right, spiralling around the peak.

While circling the landform certainly compounded Aurum's weight disadvantage, it wasn't enough to throw her off completely. Once at the summit, Spectra immediately pitched down, racing down the sheer drop and adding gravity to the smorgasbord of forces tugging at her body. Wind resistance was starting to really come into play by now. She held the spear out in front of her, the point cutting the air in front of her and contributing to an aerodynamic form. The gryphon in pursuit continued to fall away behind her, completely unable to match this speed. And to top it all off, then, it happened. Bolt was never sure what quite happened then, but almost as soon as she levelled off from coming down the mountain, the most almighty, thunderous explosion echoed across the land, heard as far as Canterlot; a terrific flash of multicoloured light radiated from its centre, and the most brilliant trail of colours followed the source of it all - Spectra's merciless shattering of the sound barrier. The shockwave tossed Aurum aside like a children's toy, and she could only watch her prey escape in the distance as she wiped out. The trail, however, got her thinking.


	7. For The Price of One

"Hey, they took my Sonic Rainboom!"

"It's a story, Rainbow, people wrote about the Sonic Rainboom long before you were born. It _is _a very old legend, after all." Dash continued to huff, despite Twilight's consolation.

"Look on the bright side, sugarcube, looks like ya won the bet." Applejack chuckled, thumping her hoof on the pegasus' foreleg.

"I still don't see how this is how Equestria was made!" Pinkie Pie whimpered, lying on her back with her hooves in the air. Twilight sighed.

"I'm sure we're getting to that part, Pinkie..."

* * *

><p>Spectra continued to fly for Ponyville throughout the night. Her exhaustion meant she was way off her normal pace; the return trip took four more hours than the journey out. She landed in the town square around sunrise, either forgetting or not caring about the possibility of apprehension. She was sleep-deprived, hungry, physically spent and still covered in untreated scrapes and cuts from her scuffling with the gryphons. The pegasus blearily tottered around, the spear tied to her belt and dragging along the ground - she had already dropped it once, and didn't want to lose it again. With a great groan of satisfaction, she found a bench and sat down. <em>Ohh, this is good... it's no cloud, but it sure... beats... zzzzz...<em> Within moments, she was falling asleep on the bench.

This didn't last, however; she began to drift on to her side, and in just a few moments, she rolled off the bench and on to the hard, stone ground.

"Okay, get a hold of yourself, Bolt..." she began to mutter to herself. "Gotta... stay awake and find... friends..." She yawned and stumbled to her hooves, and began to stagger in no direction in particular. _It's a small enough town..._ she thought. _I'll run into them sooner or later..._

The first door she tried didn't budge. The second one gave way to her haphazard shove, and she tumbled inside. A bell rang when the door opened, and it swept shut behind her. Before her was a range of counters, one with a till on it, the others made of glass, with what appeared to be cakes under them. At the sound of the bell, a big pile of pink fluff next to the counter sprang to life; the pink fluff wasn't just fluff lying on the counter, but the mane of an earth pony, who appeared to have been sleeping there. Regardless of the impression the glass left on her face, she didn't miss a beat.

"Good morning, welcome to Sugarcube corner! I'm Diana Cake, what can I get for you?"

"Sug... whaa?" Bolt mumbled, not even close to taking in all the details she was presented with. She shook her head to try and concentrate. "Okay, look, I'm looking for..."

"We do cakes, muffins, donuts, pies..."

"... I... what..." Bolt just glazed over as Diana rattled off all manners of baked treats. Her mind couldn't help but wander to thoughts of food. Oh, how hungry she w-

"... and party supplies!" The clerk beamed as she whipped out a hefty firework from under the counter. This pulled the pegasus from her daydream, but at the same time, completely baffled her. She slowly tilted her head as she reeled from the confusion, to the point where she didn't notice the clerk start to twitch a little, and the colour begin to drain from her face. She was oblivious as the clerk pawed around the counter for something. It wasn't until she saw sparks and a flint being tossed away that she registered that something was going on, all topped off when the pony before her screamed, "_Get down!_" Rather than debate the reason why she lit a rocket pointed at her, _inside_ no less, she dropped to the floor to get out of its path. She looked over her shoulder to see a figure standing behind her, only for the firework to screech overhead and connect with its torso. The thrust of the firework carried the stranger straight back out the door of the shop. Once out into the town square, it detonated, creating a brilliant explosion of coloured lights across the plaza. Chunks of the unfortunate victim at the centre of the blast flew.

Jaw dropping in abject horror, the pegasus sprinted out into the square, followed by the clerk, who leaped over the counter to follow her. As she drew closer, it became quite clear that it wasn't a pony who was sneaking up on her. Its primary identifying features were two large, brown, feathered wings splayed across the ground, mounted on a quasi-quadrupedal form; its front limbs bore razor-sharp talons, and it wore a headwrap with a curved beak poking out. A gryphon assassin.

"Miss Cake... I am in your debt." Bolt looked around at the earth pony. Diana just blinked, oblivious to the significance of her action.

* * *

><p>The ruckus started to draw the townsfolk out of their homes; slowly at first, but before long a crowd was beginning to form at the scene. Spectra sent the clerk to Calvade's farm with the spear while she passed out on a bench. Her, along with Rose, Dawn and Wingscale (the Baroness had left in the night), returned as quickly as they could to find a large mass of ponies standing in the square, all talking amongst themselves, forming an almost impenetrable wall of bodies around the scene in the middle of the town. The crowd was at fever pitch; the deafening noise made ordinary conversation nigh on impossible. Calvade turned to Wingscale and shouted something; there was no response. It's not that she didn't understand; she just didn't hear. She yelled again - nothing. She sighed, pulled down her hat and started fighting her way into the crowd. Dawn and Diana followed. Wingscale just soared overhead. If she had words to describe it, she would be thinking, <em>why didn't she just ask for a lift?<em>

The trio burst out into the clearing, stumbling over a bench. Bolt was sleeping soundly despite the chaos around her. Rose took her hat off and threw both arms into the sky, after just a moment's examination of the dead gryphon. The crowd began to hush as she exercised her unwritten authority over the town.

"_Ponies!_" she exclaimed once the roaring of the crowd had begun to die down. They faded to a soft murmur. "What this is..." She spoke slowly, clearly and deliberately. "What you see here ain't no accident. This gryphon... this..." she grabbed the fallen assassin by the back of the head and pulled it up to show the crowd. The damage to its midsection was severe enough that its legs failed to come up with its upper half. "... _beast_... did not come to Ponyville to talk. It certainly did not walk into Sugarcube corner to buy cakes. It came here..." She tossed it on the ground in front of her. "... to spill pony blood. This spear..." she grabbed the spear from Diana and held it aloft. "... was forged by gryphon claws, with one thing in mind. To spill pony blood. Now ah don't know about y'all folks, but if you ask me, these here are acts of _war._"

An undercurrent of chatter began to sweep across the crowd. It ceased when the earth pony held her open palm in the air. "Now ah know what yer thinkin'. What in the hay is a gryphon doin' all the way down here? Ah don't know. Mighta been... checkin' out the lie of the land? Maybe, spyin' on the town so that when the horde gets here they can just waltz on in? Who knows. But ah do know one thing. He _shouldn'ta_ been here. And that tells us somethin' else. That them sissies Canterlot ain't doin' _squat_ to keep 'em out. What are them ol' airheads doin' instead?" She took the Wanted poster from her pocket, unfurled it and waved the crumpled paper in the air. "Pointin' fingers an' buck everythin' else. See these two fillies they're lookin' for? They are both right here and didn't do _nothin'_." She began to pace around the clearing. "Ah think all this makes one thing pretty clear. If we wanna get these featherbags off our turf, if we wanna be able to sleep safe at night, we're gonna have to do it ourselves! _Who's with me?_" As she raised her fist in the air in time to her last statement, the gathered crowd roared in approval. Dawn, taken aback by their enthusiasm, leaned back to shout a word to Calvade over the din.

"How did you know Bolt was going to bring back a dead gryphon?"

"Ah didn't, it was just a nice surprise!" She yelled back, and resumed egging the crowd on. The triumphant ruckus was quickly hushed when something else came into play. From one corner of the huddle, the chanting ceased. This quiet spread through the crowd quickly. The back of the crowd parted, and slowly, the division spread to the front. Heavily armoured soldiers stood along the sides of the channel, holding the mass of ponies back with their crossed glaives and halberds. Walking hastily through this passage was none other than the Baroness Corundum. Rather than the subtle black wraps she had been wearing the previous night, she instead donned a graceful red dress that flowed a short way behind her. Her heels clicked as she walked, and she came to a halt at the edge of the scene. In deathly silence, she looked up and down, slowly and calmly, between the instigators and the dead gryphon. For a tense moment, nothing was said. Corundum locked eyes with Calvade. There was just their stare, and the deafening silence. The Baroness, maintaining her gaze, reached to the belt of her robe. In a single, quick motion, she pulled a hempen bag, no bigger than a fist, and tossed it to the earth pony. The contents clacked together in the catch; gemstones. Alert, she caught it easily. In the quiet, her stern words could easily be heard by all.

"I heard the whole thing. Make it happen." The crowd erupted in cheering. Rose and the Baroness just continued to stare, a smirk creeping across each of their faces. In the noise, speaking would be impossible; though each knew what the other was thinking. _Just like we planned._


	8. One Does Not Simply Walk Into Canterlot

The six comrades quickly formed an effective group dynamic. Tactically, they complimented each other: Calvade kept the ranks motivated and energised, and would lead the ground troops, while Spectra concerned herself with battleplans and would lead the pegasus units. Dawn and Wingscale would provide support in the form of magic (both offensive and healing) and beast cavalry respectively. Diana found herself as a supply master, using her experience running Sugarcube Corner to ration food and the limited supply of gunpowder weapons; the Baroness officially sat on the sidelines throwing money at the militia, but her alter ego was always watching the progress, and preparing to perform the right pushes from the shadows at the right times. Not only this, but they began to form an amicability between them. Bolt and Rose soon formed a friendly rivalry, and would go on to hold a contest over whose unit could bring in the most gryphon heads; Corundum and Wingscale could see elements of their generosity and kindness in each other, and even if their words were few by necessity, they innately understood each other; Diana's light-hearted bounciness in even the direst of circumstances eventually earned Spectra's respect, and even admiration; and Dawn, all too often, found herself arbitrating between two of her friends - be it between the Baroness and Calvade over the use of funds, or curbing Calvade and Spectra's competitiveness - though it did get her nose out of her books.

By their combined efforts, the party raised a militia within a matter of days, and within a week their army would reach Canterlot in time to intercept the marauding gryphon horde. Messengers would arrive every morning with word from the north about the settlements that had been razed in the night, and how each day the rising smoke grew closer to Canterlot. Time was running out for Equestria if they didn't act fast.

* * *

><p>When they reached Canterlot, it was just at the crest of sunrise, six days after Bolt had returned from her excursion to the north, and seven days after her and Dawn's banishment. With the numbers they were travelling in, they had no fear of arrest, nor did they have any intention of retribution. They were looking at the bigger picture. When they found Canterlot, it was preparing for siege - smoke rose in the distance from the towns destroyed in the dark hours previous, and ponies everywhere were busy ferrying supplies into the citadel. Their plan was to pass by and intercept the horde before it reached the city, so that even if they were beat into a retreat, they would have friendly (or, at least not hostile) lines to fall back on. But despite this, curiosity got the better of one pegasus, who couldn't help but use the distraction presented by the militia's parade past the front gates to sneak over the walls and see just what the High Sun Priestess' plans were.<p>

Despite her knowledge that Corundum would be far better suited to the task, Spectra broke off from the main flying group and approached the walls of Canterlot on the ground. She took cover both from the guards - still instructed to apprehend her on sight - and her own friends, who would surely call her out if she was seen. After an anxious moment's wait, she darted over the walls, a brief rustle in the bushes the only trace of her presence. Once away from the walls, she ascended to the rooftops to leap between buildings, unseen by the ponies - primarily unicorns - on the ground. She knew the palace and its patrols well enough that getting through to the Priestess' inner sanctum was simple. Before long she was creeping along the balcony of the inner hall, its rear window still undergoing repairs from her escape a week ago. The Priestess was tending to her normal business, flanked by guards as usual. _Huh. Fiddling while Equestria burns._ Before she could sit and muse much longer, the main doors of the hall were thrown open, and a figure in indigo robes - much like Dawn's, when she first encountered her - burst in, staggering across the floor and eventually coming to a kneel in the middle of the hall.

"_Your holiness!_" The mare wailed. She threw her head up, her long, white mane bouncing away, revealing her blue face and horn. The Priestess immediately turned to address her.

"Neophyte! What happened?" _Hornblende... _Bolt thought to herself, narrowing her gaze.

"Oh, it was _horrible!_" The unicorn threw herself at her mentor's hooves, sobbing uncontrollably. _Horrible acting? You bet._ "Th-th-th-th-Dawn! She tried to..." she sniffed loudly, milking her 'suffering' for all it was worth. She was visibly roughed up. "... she threw me from the balloon, and then, and then..." _Why you little..._ It took all of the pegasus' strength to restrain herself from lashing out there and then. The Priestess laid a hand on the weeping neophyte's head. She couldn't believe she was just eating it all up.

"Hmm... I had feared this was the case... come. There isn't time to lose." She started towards the door, and Bree followed, still sniffling and stuttering. Still treating the whole thing suspiciously, Spectra exited the hall through a small side window and swooped around on to the roof to get a bird's eye view of the courtyard. She looked at the position of the sun, surmising the time. _The guards will be changing shifts any moment now... that means there's a blind spot right th- oh no..._ The precious few moments it took her to work this out cost her any time she had to move. From her perch, she had just the right angle to see Hornblende whip out a dagger and plunge it into the Priestess' back, and give it a twist, emitting the most sickening squelch noise. Before this had even registered with the white unicorn, Bree angled her head into the sky and shot a pulse of light into the sky from her horn. By the time the Priestess' knees hit the ground, the magical energy had exploded brilliantly in the air over Canterlot, a noise quickly followed by distant caws and screeches. _So she WAS a spy... __That tears it._

The pegasus leaped from the roof and charged down at the traitorous unicorn, pulling the spear - her spear, now - from her back. In the instant before she would have made contact, Bree disappeared in a puff of smoke. Bolt had committed to her trajectory, and carried on into the ground. The spear stuck into the ground and she rolled across the dirt. The gravity of the situation became apparent as she hastily staggered to her hooves and spat a mouthful of blood - she was now not just a wanted fugitive, but a wanted fugitive with a gryphon-made spear, and the only pony within fifty yards of the dead Priestess, with a beacon for the horde just detonated overhead. Her heart racing, she snatched the spear from the dirt and took to the sky, subtlety be damned.

* * *

><p>"Gryphons! The horde! They're attacking!" Bolt yelled as she raced over the wall and back towards the formation, which were still making their way around the outer walls of the city.<p>

"What... is she doing..." Dawn groaned, watching a few guards chase after her.

"Ah don't know..." Rose sighed. As Spectra passed overhead, the pegasus units of their assembled army began to follow her in formation, cutting off the pursuit of the guards. They swept out over the forest, just in time to catch the first wave of aerial gryphon assault, buying the ground troops precious time. "... but ah think we better go along with it!" Calvade broke ahead of the march, stopping them in place, and began to hurriedly bark out instructions as best she could over the ruckus of battle in the background and the chatter of the militiaponies among themselves. Dawn cast a quick voice amplification spell to help. "Alright ponies, this ain't gonna be pretty, but this only we way we're doin' this. The pegasi have 'em grounded for now, so you need to get in that there forest and kill 'em before they can get airborne again! The main attack will be straight down this here bank." She motioned to the side of the road, where a steep hill lead to the denser trees below. "Don't worry 'bout no formation, just use yer heads an' think practical. The forest ain't open enough for anythin' formal. Wingscale, bring yer critters in from 'bout half a mile west o' here and surprise 'em from behind, we should have 'em busy by then. An' _you!_" She turned to face the city walls, where a number of guardsponies were standing around, somewhat bewildered. "If any of you have even a _shred_ of decency, of pride in who you are as ponies, you will turn around and get every last able-bodied stallion and mare out there an' fightin' with us! _Ya hear?_" Two of them exchanged glances for a moment, before abandoning their posts and disappearing into the city. She returned her focus to the mass of ponies behind her. She stood at the crest of the hill, looking out over the forest. "Ready!" She called out. She inhaled deeply, savouring this auspicious moment; the scent of morning air, punctuated with the distant clatter of airborne melee, the occasional stamp of an uneasy hoof behind her, the infrequent _caw_ of a gryphon's last breath. _Let's go to work. _"_Charge!_" At this, her army needed no further instruction. They poured over the hill and into the forest, roaring with bravado.

Meanwhile, in the skies over the forest, chaos had broken out. The pegasi had been charging in a V-wing formation in waves, which did a very good job of parrying the gryphons' initial assault; but when they came for a second pass, their formation was scattered, and much of the fighting reduced to dogfights. Pairs of sparring partners cruised through the air over the woods, arrows and spears following nearly everyone, most of them raining down on the ground below, occasionally accompanied by a body. The more agile ponies had the upper hand initially, leaving the bulkier gryphons to chase loose feathers and horsehair. However, the longer the melee dragged on and the more punishment was dealt, the more the gryphons could take, and the more the pegasi tired. Spectra was being kept quite busy, and wasn't fully aware of this until fatigue began to drag on her performance. _This can't go on all day._ At this realisation, she quickly despatched her current assailant and backed up to survey the battle. Pegasi were beginning to get cut down as narrow scrapes built up. _Pfft. Volunteers._ Inhaling, she began to circle the battlefield at the highest speed she could manage, prompting others to begin the same or get out of the way. Before long, they began to stir the wind in their wake, creating a small whirlwind, scooping up those gryphons unlucky enough not to escape. The tornado pulled them around for the full minute of the formation's duration, before the pegasi spontaneously broke off, throwing the disoriented gryphons inside far away, most wiping out over the forest, a few crashing into city walls and buildings at a bone-crushing speed.

On the ground, the battle was far less kinetic. Small groups of ponies split off from the disorganised mass that charged down the hill and stalked the entrenched gryphons from behind the trees. Most of the invaders were pacing uneasily, muttering to each other as they watched the pegasi despatch most of the first wave with their manipulation of air currents. Occasionally they would dodge an incoming arrow or spear. Slowly, the more courageous ponies began to spring out and ambush the gryphons, surrounding their improvised nests and picking small groups off at a time. Calvade was right in the thick of it, practicing what can barely be described as stealth at all, perhaps hiding behind a tree for a moment before lunging at a group of gryphons with an axe plundered from the farm, or, if found in a fix, a high kick. The element of surprise quickly wore off, and as the rest of the horde became alerted to the assault, the stalking soon descended into bloody running battle. Rose continued to soldier on, attacking gryphon brutes nearly twice her size with sheer, honest passion. This only added to the terror her victims felt moments before their skulls became indented with the blow of an axe or a hefty hoofprint - she was far stronger than she looked. She was one hard-working earth pony and damned if she wasn't happy to demonstrate the fruit of years of apple-bucking.

On the road, following behind the infantry units, were the artillery. Wheeling hastily prepared cannons and loose fireworks, the artillery units set up at the side of the road and commenced bombardment. Their aim was trained just over the tops of the trees, neatly between the grounded gryphons and the circling pegasi above, to help ease the pressure on them. Diana was running around frantically, ferrying bundles of rockets and powder around between cannon and volley crews. She couldn't help but giggle and squeal every time a rocket screamed from the ground and went off with the most almighty _bang_ over the forest, coloured sparks flying everywhere. She had to be shaken back to reality a few times just because of this, though inevitably she'd glaze over again as soon as the next rocket fired. That is, until something brought her crashing back down to reality. Moments before she was about to hand a cannon crew a bag of powder to reload, their improvised device cracked open and blew apart. The three ponies who were firing it, along with Diana, were blown back. One careered off the hill and tumbled into the forest. The other two of the crew were scattered along the road, bones snapping like twigs from the force of the explosion and the torsion of angular impact. Diana was furthest from the blast, just being knocked back a few feet and winded. She was lucky to avoid the shrapnel, though a crewpony behind her was not so fortunate. As she reeled from the blast, staggering to her hooves, her puffy mane began to wilt and uncurl, a realisation dawning upon her. _This is no party..._ her expression faded from shock to determination, as she grabbed a stack of fireworks and a flint, and finished her thought out loud; "... so let's _make_ it one.._._" To the mixed confusion and horror of the remaining artillery crew, she leaped off the crest of the hill and skidded down to join the fray.

* * *

><p>AN: If you haven't caught it by now, the OC I mentioned earlier was the Priestess. She has no real analogue outside the story-within-a-story (inception!).


	9. Fealty

_Thump._ Something was stirring. _Thump._ Something big. _Thump._ Something angry. _Crash._ Calvade jumped back in panic from the tree she was just swinging on, and it crashed to the ground under the foot of something, something that levelled trees like mere shrubs. For a brief moment, both her and her gryphon adversaries were united in terror as they scrambled away and looked up at the colossal, scarlet dragon that had just barged on to the battlefield. The din of battle began to subside as the combatants gazed up at this new factor in the combat equation. As another figure revealed itself, the terror began to drain from one side, increasingly filled with bravado, only to add to that of the other; a grin crept across Rose's face as a flowing set of pale green robes, a soft pink mane and a pair of pastel yellow wings revealed themselves on the dragon's head.

"Wingscale..." she whispered, staggering back on to her hooves. She cheered as she backed out of the way, allowing the Beastmistress of the Everfree Forest to go to work.

Meanwhile, Dawn was not leading the charge into battle. The militia's unicorns were spread out among the forest, backing up their non-magical allies with covering spells and healing, leaving her without a unit to lead. However, she could tell that something was afoot. Bolt's frantic fleeing from the city, the beacon, the sudden appearance of the horde from nowhere... there was something she was missing. Under the cover of battle, with the guards scrambling able-bodied ponies to arms, she had no problem entering the city of Canterlot and investigating what Spectra had been running from. Before she could get very far, she was yanked into a side alley.

"Hey, what thmff!" A finger was pressed to her mouth. She looked to her side. Corundum had pulled her from the street.

"I got the same idea you did and ran ahead. The Priestess was stabbed in the palace courtyard."

"Do you think..."

"It's not impossible it was Spectra. I haven't been able to get close enough to the body to investigate any further." The Baroness peered around the corner to survey the scene. Mass panic and delirium, and frantic conscription in the streets. "They're still on the lookout for you. Stick with me."

"... I've got an idea. Whatever spell you're using to hide yourself and get around, I can boost it. We should be able to get into the palace undetected and get close to the body." Corundum gave the street one last look, before turning back to Dawn and nodding. With a brief flash of light, the two unicorns were rendered invisible and silent to all but each other. They sprinted to the palace, any traces of their hoofsteps removing themselves after a moment or two.

The body had been hastily cleared inside, a trail of blood making it easy to follow - it lead from the courtyard to the hall, where the body lay, squarely in the middle. A brass dagger lay beside the corpse, smeared in congealing blood. Dawn instantly recognised it as gryphon-made, based on similarity to the spear shown earlier. _Tell me she didn't..._

* * *

><p>Outside, the pegasi had begun to settle into a patrol, receiving fewer and fewer assaults from the gryphons. This sense of security - watching a dragon terrorise the ground-bound forces - took them all the more by surprise when a renewed assault came, not from the ground below them, but the air above them - a cohort had splintered from the main group to flank the pegasi. Spectra was stunned and sent spiralling to the ground, and crashed at the base of the wall. She was not severely injured from the fall, but when she rolled over to look up at what had downed her, her assailant had made themselves very obvious - a large gryphon pinned her where she lay, a gilded trident stuck in the ground, just inches from her head.<p>

"_Aurum!_"

"Well, well! Small world after all, Spectra." she taunted. The pegasus just seethed, her injured body unable to properly throw the bulkier gryphon off. "Y'know, my offer still stands. I'm accomodating like that."

"It'll be the _only_ thing left of you standing when I get through with you!"

"Ah-ah-ahhh, I don't think you're in the position of strength here. Just think about your options for a moment. You could join me, or I could slice you open right here. Or even better! Rip your wings off feather by feather and watch you suffer life on the ground like those other mules." Spectra just growled through narrowed eyes. "Well? I don't have all day, an answer would be go-"

"_Don't even think about it._" a voice called out from the side. Aurum's attention was immediately grabbed by the flat ultimatum, and the sound of a fuse. Her eyes widened, and she immediately threw herself into the air, putting a yard or so between herself and Spectra, only just enough room for a rocket to whizz through and explode on a tree in the distance, igniting the dry leaves. Once clear, the pegasus rolled away to the side, giving the most relieved grin of her life at Diana, before taking off into the sky once more. Diana was already stuffing another firework into the tube mounted on her shoulder, pouting and determined, glaring daggers at Aurum. Cursing, the gryphon turned to the earth pony to deal with her. However, the sound of another fuse burning made her think twice, and she took off after Bolt.

Spectra's bruises made her much slower than she would have liked, and it wasn't particularly long before she felt a gryphon claw grasp around her hoof, and she was pulled into a spin. With two rotations' wind-up, Aurum flung the pegasus to the nearest wall. Fortunately for Bolt, it wasn't a wall she was going to meet at high speed, but a large window - unfinished stained glass. In a moments' quick thinking, she tossed her spear ahead of her to break the pane and lessen the injury from the impact.

* * *

><p>Suddenly, the very spear Dawn was thinking of entered the scene; it crashed through the pane of glass at the back of the room, where the window was still being repaired. It whistled between the two hidden unicorns, missing their heads by inches, before sticking in the carpet on the floor. Soon after, its owner followed - the cyan blue pegasus careering through the window and skidding along the ground, coming to a halt with her nose just in front of the Priestess' body. The unicorns uncloaked, bemused expressions on their faces.<p>

"You better have one _damn_ good explanation, Bolt." Dawn glared. It took Bolt a moment to piece together what was going on here as she picked herself up.

"The- it wasn't me!"

"Just consider the evidence against you." Corundum interrupted. "You were last seen fleeing from the direction of the palace with guards in pursuit, moments after the beacon went off. The murder weapon was this." She held the bloody blade up telekinetically. "A gryphon dagger. One you could easily have receieved with that spear you nearly _killed us with just now_ when you went up north a week ago." Spectra was dumbstruck. She couldn't believe what she was hearing, but she didn't have any hard evidence to the contrary.

"B-b Hornblende!"

"Sounds a lot like a scapegoat to me." Dawn butted in. "Unless she's gotten much better at magic since I last saw her, then I doubt she'd be able to pull off the spells necessary to get out of here." With the two unicorns unrelenting in their accusations, Bolt sighed, her options quickly exhausting. "Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"

"... If... if this is what you've convinced yourselves of, and you won't take my word for it, then... I guess you can kill me here." She pulled herself up and sat before the body, sniffing back a tear. "I won't run." The unicorns looked at each other for a moment, only for their deliberation to be interrupted when a terrifying white and auburn form swept in the window and landed with a firm _thud_ on all-fours. Bolt dove across the body and reclaimed her spear, missing the gryphon's landing by inches. Aurum looked up with murderous glee in her eyes. Wasting no time, she had charged the three ponies in the middle of the room. Spectra easily backed up to the top of the hall, but the two unicorns were not so lucky. Dawn took a claw to the shoulder, throwing her across the floor, and charge knocked the Baroness flat on her back. Dawn was winded against the wall and struggling to rise to her hooves. Eyeing an opportunity, Aurum scooped up Corundum held her by the neck, giving her a blow to the head sufficient to stun her. She then turned to the roof holding her hostage aloft.

"_Last chance, pegasus_." she screamed. "_Skewer this bitch or get out of my sight._" Dawn gasped, crawling from cover, watching in horror as Bolt lowered from the ceiling, rearing back the spear. She recoiled behind her cover again. She couldn't believe her eyes. She didn't want to either. She wouldn't allow herself to watch, but she couldn't fully withdraw herself from it - nothing would block out the blood-curdling scream that followed. However, the ensuing sound turned her conclusion on its head. "_My wing!_" She opened her eyes to find the Baroness intact - if, still unconscious and dropped to the ground - and the spear embedded in Aurum's right wing, blood beginning to dribble from it.

"I missed your head." Spectra replied, deadpan, as she lowered to the ground. Aurum let rip a brutal roar as she pulled the spear free, and chucked it haphazardly at the pegasus. It just clattered along the ground ineffectually. Bolt kept her eyes locked on Aurum.

"_You'll get yours, mule!_" the gryphon yelled as she leapt back through the window, barely getting enough lift to carry the jump off properly with just the one wing.

Dawn scrambled to her hooves, and ran up to Bolt; not in attack, but in something of a tearful, pouncing hug.

"I'm... I'm sorry I doubted you..." Dawn sniffed. Spectra inhaled, smirking stoically.

"Don't worry, you couldn't have known any better..."

"What happened? What did she mean by 'last chance'? And... the guards? Why were you running away?"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down there." Bolt protested. Corundum was just beginning to come to and pick up some of this. "One thing at a time. Okay, last week when I went to find something from the north to bring back, I landed in this town that was being attacked. I went in to help, but I was stopped and Aurum cornered me, and, well, she offered to let me join her." Dawn went wide-eyed. "Of course, I spat it back in her face. And then just now, outside, she came up to me with the same offer. So I can see why you might have doubted me on that, since... since I didn't say anything."

"And the Priestess?"

"I was there when she was killed, but I was only watching. I sneaked in to see what the Priestess' plans were when Hornblende burst in and started whining some load of garbage about how you 'tried to killer her'. And then, the moment the Priestess went out the door, she stabbed her in the back and sent up the signal. I tried to take her down right there, but she got away, and that's when I had to get out... which... means she's still out there!"

"We'll take care of her, you've got pegasi to lead, and Aurum is getting away too!"

"Right!" Bolt grinned, regaining some of her composure as she scooped up the spear and made for the window.


	10. Complication

Dawn and the Baroness were left to find Hornblende by themselves, after Spectra had departed to rejoin the battle. It did not, however, take them very long - no sooner had the pegasus exited out the back window had the doors swung shut, and the window glazed over with an ethereal barrier. The two unicorns soon found themselves sharing the hall with a third.

"Well, well..." a voice called out from behind them, as the pair attempted to leave through the doors, only for them to slam in their faces. Both wheeled round to find Bree sitting on the Priestess' throne, having just uncloaked. "That's just today all over, isn't it? Can't get those gryphons to do a job right at all."

"Why, you little..." Corundum started towards her with a determined walk, only to be stopped just a few paces in front of where she had stood, and with an electric crackling, thrown back to the door. Hornblende chuckled deviously as the Baroness picked herself up.

"Ah-ah-ahhh..." She slouched in the throne, one leg up on one of the armrests. "I think you'll find the time it took you to get here was more than enough to set up more traps than you'll ever find in here." She smirked as Dawn seethed. "Now, as I think you may have noticed, these buzzards have been a little less than effective today. I hadn't counted on you raising hell in defence of this little mountainside village. Or even on surviving the fall from that balloon, but oh well! Let bygones be bygones. Now..."

"You killed the Priestess, tried to kill me, lured the gryphon horde to Canterlot _and_ tried to frame my friend? _What is wrong with you?_" Dawn screamed.

"Oh? You don't sound to happy about all that. I would have thought not having the Priestess around was a load off your shoulders. Weren't you ever told not to look a gift horse in the mouth?" Bree tittered, watching Dawn fume. "Now if you don't mind I have to pick up some of the gryphons' slack here." Hornblende hopped off the throne and down to the body. She dipped a finger in the blood - not pumping out profusely, but the wound was still open and fresh - and began to trace out shapes on the floor. Dawn started to panic.

"Bl- blood magic? _You're insane!_"

"Well, desperate times call for desperate measures. You should have thought about that before you got so good at raising armies." Bree chuckled casually as she continued setting up her ritual.

"Why are you even _doing _this?"

"Ooohh... maybe you're not quite as smart as you seem. The difference between the prospect of slaving away under the Priestess and inviting the friendly neighbourhood gryphons around to instate me as Vicereine of Equestria should be obvious!" she jeered, taking another dip and tracing out some more arcane patterns like it was nothing.

"I... I knew you were a jealous competitive braggart, but this is just a whole new level!"

"Well, times change and all that. Now please, do be quiet, I'm making... _the magics._ Or just whine and scream all you like really, there's not a lot you can do back there. I do appreciate this whole not-putting-up-an-effective-resistance thing you're doing right now, it's being _most_ helpfu..." she was cut off in mid-sentence by a firm punch to the mouth from an unexpected direction. Corundum was standing before her as she reeled. Dawn threw over a smirk. _She should learn how high the room is before trying to wall it up._

"Sorry to inconvenience then, darling." she chuckled, before throwing another punch. This time, however, Hornblende teleported to the side, causing her to miss and lose balance, before receiving a swift elbow to the back.

"I really do _not_ have time to play!" enchanting her leg with extra force, she kicked the Baroness across the room. She slid into a suit of armour by the wall, which clattered down over the tiled floor. This draw, however, broke her concentration enough to allow Dawn to focus and penetrate her cage. Dawn barrelled towards the centre of the hall, aiming to skid under Hornblende's legs to disrupt the patterns marked out in blood. Her assault was parried when she was tossed overhead with the most meagre of psychic throws, and instead landed face-first on the other side. As she righted herself, she levitated over the fallen suit of armour's sword and caught it with ease. It weighed quite heavily in her hand, but it was not unmanageable - a little concentration helped ease the weight. She returned her charge, putting focus into penetrating any shield that may come up... only to be parried again when another sword crossed her path, bringing her to a halt with her hooves just short of the markings. "But if you insist..." Bree smirked. Another suit of armour was bereft of its sword.

With a light concussive shove, Hornblende pushed her opponent back, and they began to spar. Dawn's first slice removed one sleeve from Bree's robe, and revealed substantial muscle tone in her arms - she hadn't needed to waste focus on telekinetically lifting her sword. Her look at their next crossed-blades stalemate said it all - a haughty smirk that read, _there are benefits to taking your nose out of a book now and then, Dawn._ Her concentration was free enough that when Corundum went to assault her from behind - a backstab with her own jewel dagger - the blow just bounced off another magical shield. Hornblende lifted her leg to deal a firm, hoofed kick to Dawn's midsection, winding her. Dawn panicked a little as she went down, desperately trying to guide the sword so it didn't land on her own leg. Bree took this moment to pick up the reeling Baroness and hold her aloft. Her captive cloaked, trying to remove all trace of herself from Hornblende's focus, but it was no use - once she was caught, it was as if Bree could feel her, like holding a small animal in her hand. With a little pullback, she tossed the unicorn towards the back window. Corundum panicked, her cloak dissipating instantly.

"_No!_"

"Save your friend or delay me a few more seconds. What'll it be?" Bree chuckled, grinning maliciously. Dawn was honestly conflicted - attempt to catch Corundum before she landed and let Hornblende finish her ritual, summoning untold evils, or continue duelling, possibly without success on any front? An idea flashed in her mind just then as she tried to find a middle ground. She turned to point her horn at the window, and with a mighty burst, she fired an ethereal, lilac-hued missile through the window, and it exploded in a perfect sphere, the detritus gravitating toward itself as it fell, forming a downward pointing cone - hopefully pointing out the position of the falling unicorn.

Outside, the signal was seen all over the battlefield, but four individuals in particular recognised this signal as important. Spectra's quick eyes immediately spotted Corundum sailing through the air towards the forest below. She broke off her current dogfight with a simple reversal and a knee to the shoulder of the gryphon pursuing her, and immediately darted down to intercept the Baroness' flightpath. Wingscale, fluttering around the dragon and monitoring its progress, made a few mental calculations, before grabbing Calvade - fighting on the ground nearby - and carrying her, kicking and screaming, to the site of the beacon. Diana was immediately drawn to the site, and met Spectra and Corundum upon their landing.

The emission of this beacon, however, was still not quick enough. It still consumed a precious few seconds - seconds Hornblende used to speed through the last components of her ritual, and begin the summoning. Blood magic is an ancient heresy from the teachings of the Sun cult that ruled Canterlot, and its ways forbidden for as many practical reasons as political reasons. It is concerned with calling forth wounded beings from other planes in exchange for blood from a wounded being of this plane, and the inhabitants of other planes are seldom pleasant and almost never good-natured. The nature of the sacrifice depends on the extent of blood shed. A simple pin-prick might summon a mere gnat, while the blood of the freshly deceased can summon beings of immense, sometimes even god-like power. By the time Dawn had recovered to resume the duel, it was already too late - even if she had had the chance to slice Hornblende in half there and then, the blood patterns were already lit on fire, and the summoning had commenced. Bree knew this full-well, and had tossed her sword to the side. All she said to the stunned unicorn was a simple instruction;

"If you know what's good for you, you'll let me concentrate." Dawn reluctantly stayed her hand. If she slew her then, or even distracted her, whatever she called forth would be let loose upon the world with no commander, free to do as it pleased. As bad as a gryphon victory would be, a demon rampant would be so much worse. She let her sword clatter to the ground, and reluctantly conceded bitter defeat.

However, the battle was not over just yet - five ponies arrived through the window, just as Dawn had given up hope. Two pegasi hauled two earth ponies and a unicorn in, and they immediately assumed a battle formation when they saw the scene before them.

* * *

><p>Twilight cleared her throat nervously as she continued reading.<p>

"The next few moments were a blur to Dawn, and she could only watch as her clueless comrades charged Hornblende. Bree was forced to parry their assaults, distracting her from the ritual; when it proceeded to completion, the room was bathed in white glow, stunning all seven ponies. The being of pure light was called forth from the circle. Terrified, five of the combatants went to assault it, but were instead plucked from the air like apples and held to struggle. The capture of her friends roused Dawn from her daze and prompted her to attempt attack in desperate retaliation. However..." Twilight gulped again, her voice beginning to waver a little. "... she was met with the same apprehension. Finally, as Hornblende backed into the corner, pinning herself against the wall, she screamed at the beast, '_I summoned you! You answer to me!_', but the beast responded in a voice, smooth and silky, '_I think not._', and pulled her in all the same. It whispered upon the seven who dared oppose her a curse; that they all be banished to remain unborn for a thousand years, and with that, they all vanished, each leaving behind but two remnants of their existence. A weapon - a spear, a staff, an axe, a dagger, a rocket, and two swords - and a stone trinket representing the quality they had espoused most in life - loyalty, kindness, honesty, generosity, laughter, and two of magic."

She bit her lip and looked up at her audience. None of them displayed the cheer and fascination they had earlier, though they were still just as gripped. Even the fearless Rainbow Dash trembled in terror. Pinkie Pie's mane had drooped flat. Fluttershy hid her eyes behind her hooves. Nonetheless, she continued the final tract of the story.

"With this done, the beast burst forth from the palace and took hold of all of the kind who had opposed it in its birth into this world. In childish glee, it cursed every last pony of this world to walk on four legs, and for their hands to be replaced with another set of hooves; wiping its new slaves of their memories of life before, it assumed a form they would recognise, and instated itself as their ruler, naming itself upon their previous cult: Princess Celestia. The terrified gryphon horde fled Equestria, never to trouble their borders again; the only one to act again on this matter was Chieftain Aurum. She went on to record this tale in full, using means both mundane and magical to see into the past of the banished seven, so that how Equestria was truly made would never be forgotten, and that one day, upon the return of the banished, they might undo that which, a thousand years previously, they had... set... into motion..."

"Heheh..." Rainbow chuckled nervously. "It _is_ just a story, right? _Right?_" Twilight flipped to the next page, the last in the book.

"There's... there's a list of caretakers of the book here... and a note. 'I leave this book to the inheritors of my line so that they may one day pass this account on to the Banished - Aurum'... names... names... this... wow..."

"What?"

"You're not gonna believe this... the last name on this list is Gilda." The jaws of all five other ponies hit the floor. "There's another note here too... it says, '_You're welcome, flip-flop_'."


	11. Stranger Than Fiction

A/N: Big chapter, lots of scene changes. Still not sure about this configuration, still switching things around. Doesn't help that FFN's word counter counts HTML tags along with words. Currently thinking about trimming the fat off this chapter.

* * *

><p>"Well, you did say we all had a special connection before we even met, Fluttershy..." Twilight's consolation was met with fearful gibbering from the gentle pegasus.<p>

"How do we know this ain't all just a big load o' hooey?" Applejack argued. Twilight thought hard for a moment.

"I... I don't know. It's not like we can just look into the past to see... what... happened..." Just then, an idea struck. "_Of course!_" She tossed the storybook aside and began to pick through the books scattered around and still on the shelves.

"Of... course what?"

"The book said Aurum used 'means both mundane and magical' to get the whole story of what happened, which means somewhere there's a spell that can see _into _the past!" She continued to throw books around the library. "Hmm... nope, uh... no... that's not it either!"

"Uh, is this gonna take a while? It's..." Applejack yawned deeply. "... pretty darn late."

"Oh, ah... you ponies should get some sleep, I might be a while looking for this spell..."

"I don't know if I'll be able to sleep..." Fluttershy mumbled to herself.

* * *

><p>The next morning, Applejack was the first to wake. After all, her body was disciplined to get up at this hour to tend to the farm. Everypony else was sprawled around the room, in various states of disturbed sleep. Fluttershy looked awful, like she hadn't fallen asleep until fatigue finally managed to overcome her terror. Rainbow Dash had found herself a nice little perch on top of a bookshelf. Rarity, it appeared, had given up trying to to sleep on a pile of pillows and just claimed Twilight's empty bed. Pinkie Pie had found herself an odd sleeping position underneath Spike's basket. Her mane had poofed out again, indicating that she was at least feeling a little better. Spike was beginning to stir - he would probably be up soon. And most importantly, Twilight was sound asleep, her nose in a book. The earth pony smirked a little and pulled the book out from under her. She had drooled on it a little, and while the paper was a little worse for wear, the ink appeared not to have run. <em>Window to the past<em>, the page read. _Observe events as they were in the location of casting at some time in the past_. The rest of the page consisted of impenetrable explanation, littered with arcane equations. She quirked an eyebrow, and came to the conclusion that this must have been the spell Twilight had settled on before passing out.

"Whoa! When did all you guys get here?" a voice called out. She looked up from the book to find Spike toddling down the stairs, rubbing his head.

"Oh, ah... we got stuck in the blizzard last night an' all had to stay here. You ah, don' mind, do yer?"

"It's fine, but next time warn me so I don't accidentally try to ask Rarity for breakfast." Spike rolled his eyes. Applejack couldn't help but giggle. "You don't look so great, like you didn't sleep right. Is something up?"

"I, uh..." the earth pony knew she was a terrible liar, so she opted for a half-truth. "... ah think Twi should explain. Mah head ain't a hundred percent this mornin'."

"Alright... got any gemstones? I'm hungry..."

* * *

><p>Twilight was the last to wake. The chatter and noise only made her stir; she eventually had to be shaken awake. When she was roused, she mumbled about something incoherently for a few moments before pulling herself up. She found Applejack lightly nudging her with a hoof.<p>

"Y'alright sugarcube? Looks like you were up pretty late."

"Oh, I... I'm fine. I... got the... where's the b..." the unicorn looked around in mild panic, before noticing the book in front of her. "Here it is. I found a spell we can use. It's tricky, but it's the only one that might work." Rainbow Dash yawned and floated by.

"Can we talk about it over breakfast? I'm _starving_."

"Did somebody say breakfast?" Spike promptly appeared from the basement with a small bale of hay. Twilight just kept talking.

"What it does is create an image of what happened at a particular point in the past. For example..." She squinted in focus. A small area in front of her glowed a little, and everything within it stopped. Then it appeared to play in reverse, little flecks of dust rising where they were falling a moment ago, before coming to a stop at the point Applejack pulled the book from under her face. She held the still for all to see for a moment, and let it dissipate. "... now that was just a small area a few minutes ago. To get what we want from this spell, we'll need to find somewhere that we know all seven Banished were at the same time and go back over a _thousand years_. And from what I could tell from re-reading the story, the only place that works for that is the hall in the old palace..."

"Banished? Thousand years? Twilight, what are you talking about?" Spike tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. Twilight just kept on spilling her research, as if she wasn't even aware of Spike.

"... which Celestia's palace was built on top of. Then add to this how public it's likely to be, and how many hexes Celestia might have put on the place to remove the evidence of the past..."

"Equestria to Twilight! Come in, Twilight!" Spike knocked on the unicorns head. She blinked and looked around, then squeaked and fell over in surprise.

"Spike! Sorry, I forgot you were here..." she gibbered. The dragon huffed.

"What are you talking about? Did I sleep through something _again_?"

"Oh, I..." she thought quite hard for a moment. As loyal as Spike was, this was the one individual she knew who could rat them out to Celestia on a whim. She didn't think he would, but it was still a big thing to bring to bear. "Spike, I need you to promise me something."

"Oh... kay? Sure, Twilight." Spike quirked an eyebrow. The unicorn went shifty-eyed for a moment before continuing, her tone hushed.

"What I'm about to tell you, you must tell nopony. Not a soul outside this room should know about this."

"Huh? And what makes this secret any different from _my_ secret that _you_ didn't keep?"

"Spike, this is _serious._ It's not like your lrhh-hrr crhrh hrn Rhhr-hrr-hrr that you don't exactly keep secret yourself." The dragon pouted at Twilight's accusation, before looking down at it his 'I heart Rarity' t-shirt. He quickly pulled it off and threw it aside with a nervous chuckle.

"Alright, cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my ey-_ow_." Twilight smiled a little, and pulled him over to the side.

"Okay, Spike. This is gonna sound a little far-fetched..."

* * *

><p>After breakfast, Twilight began to talk plans with the other ponies, with a noticeably paler Spike sitting on her back.<p>

"Alright, now as I said earlier, this spell is going to be hard to get right, and probably going to be very public if we can't find another way in. So before we go running around the basement of the palace, I think we should follow another lead first." Silence.

"... such as?" Rarity gestured.

"Rainbow Dash, I need you to find Gilda..."

"Oh, brother..."

"... and see if it adds up on her side of the story."

"I don't remember her saying _anything_ about _any _of this before... and it just seems nothing like her! It's almost like this is just a great big prank..."

"If this is a prank, it's a big mean one that isn't funny!" Pinkie Pie interrupted, frowning. Her mane was still at only a mild poof.

"Rainbow, I know things are still sore between you and Gilda, but you need to at least try. It's the simplest lead we have." Twilight pleaded. The pegasus frowned, still thinking.

"'sides, ya should be quick enough to get yer flank outta there in a jiffy if things get messy, right? Or are you not _iron pony_ enough?" Applejack grinned, giving her a light shove. Dash immediately perked up.

"Oh, you're _on!_" She bolted for Twilight's balcony door - the one door not barred with snow - and took off fast enough to leave the door spinning in her wake. Twilight just boggled.

"Are you two really _that_ competitive?"

"Ah know she is." the earth pony chuckled.

* * *

><p>Shattering. A large block of ice split into a million pieces upon a sharp impact. The blow caused the frozen cube to split along lines of weakness and fall apart like glass.<p>

"Yer not usin' power tools, are you?" a young voice queried.

"_Ugh!_" another replied, casting away the hammer and chisel in her telekinetic grip.

"I guess we can take 'ice sculpture' off the list..." a third added. Scootaloo took a pencil in her mouth and scribbled out the phrase from a very, very long scroll. In big letters at the top of it was a title, 'Cutie Mark Crusaders Crusades'. The 'e' in 'cutie' was backwards, but nopony who ever read the scroll seemed to notice. Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were out in the snow on Sweet Apple Acres that morning, continuing their usual misguided quests for their Cutie Marks.

"Applebloom, it's cold, can we go inside?" Sweetie Belle complained.

"Yeah, a snow survival cutie mark does _not_ sound fun..." Scootaloo stashed the scroll in her saddlebag and started in the direction of the house. Their treehouse was barely accessible in the snow, and after all, the Apple family house had heating.

"Fine..."

Inside the kitchen, a hearty stew was brewing on the fire, and Big Macintosh was snoozing nearby. His peaceful nap, however, was short-lived. The three young fillies burst down the door and charged inside. The noise

"Mmm, something smells _good!_" Scootaloo barged up to the cauldron and took a good long sniff of the soup, unwittingly pushing it over a little. Some excess spilled out on to the fire and boiled off in an instant. Still delirious, Big Mac could only raise a hoof and open his jaw in protest before the young pegasus was off again to look at something else.

"Applebloom, your house is really nice! I can't believe we've never been inside before!" Sweetie Belle was crawling along the mantelpiece, examining decorations and tossing them aside. A photo frame just cracked on the floor. Applebloom just kicked her boots off, one of them careering through the air to _thunk_ against Big Mac's head. Dazed for a moment, he shook his head and slowly rose to his hooves. He glanced casually at the chaos around the room for a moment. The door was left wide open, cutlery and crockery was flying everywhere, and Applebloom was perfectly content to let the two guests root around the room while she raided the pantry for a snack. It was hard to even see where they were at any given moment - they were practically bouncing off the ceiling. He quirked an eyebrow and thought for a moment. He then simply and calmly raised a hoof to his side. Scootaloo's absent-minded prancing led her straight into the hoof, clothes-lining her and knocking her flat. Sweetie Belle and Applebloom, on similar oblivious courses, tripped over the hoof and landed in a heap on top of Scootaloo. With just a disparaging look, he sat back down. He didn't need words; his calm, definite gestures communicated everything he needed to. The Crusaders untangled themselves from each other and sat around the fire.

"Big Macintosh, you ain't seen Applejack anywhere today, didja?"

"Nnnope. She didn't come home last night." The stallion gazed stoically at the fire, settling back down to nap. The Crusaders exchanged mildly concerned glances.

"I haven't seen Rarity since yesterday either!" Sweetie Belle added.

"And I couldn't find Rainbow Dash anywhere!" Scootaloo whimpered.

"Are you thinkin' what ah'm thinkin'?" Applebloom smirked. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle grinned, and the three of them yelled out in unison;

"_Cutie Mark Crusaders Detectives!_" The collective shout made Big Mac nearly jump out of his skin. He grumbled quietly to himself while the three little fillies scampered back outside.

* * *

><p>Twilight decided to go for a walk to clear her mind. Rainbow Dash would be at least a couple of hours; she had to make her way all the way to Gilda's nest after all, and the gryphon lands to the north would be positively frigid at this time of year. Nopony else went to join her; her friends were perfectly content to huddle up to stay warm. The events of the night before still played back in her mind; the whole story seemed so far-fetched, so alien, so... scarily plausible. The characters of the story matched so closely to her friends; the fiery but loyal Captain Spectra to Rainbow Dash, honest hardworking Rose to Applejack, the fabulous but generous Baroness to Rarity, the mute, kind, animal-loving Wingscale to Fluttershy, the talented, bookish Dawn to herself, and Diana Cake is just Pinkie Pie all over...<p>

Another thing stuck in her mind as odd. _The book said that the ponies walked upright on two hooves and had "hands", whatever they are. They sounded a lot like Spike's claws, with fingers for holding delicate objects... but shouldn't this have a huge effect on how Ponyville was built? Some of these structures are well over a thousand years old..._ her train of thought was interrupted when, too absorbed in her own thoughts to look where she was going, she bumped into a bench. The blow knocked her over on to the ice.

"Are you okay, Twilight?" A voice called from nearby as she slipped and struggled to her hooves.

"Yeah, I'm f-" As she opened her eyes at the speaker, her mind made a sudden, startling connection. Lyra and Bon-bon were sat together on the bench. Lyra had always, inexplicably, had this habit of sitting in an awkward slouch with her belly up and her head and shoulders resting on the back of the bench. _Why would a bench made for ponies have a back rest on it? Why would ponies even need benches to sit on?_ "-ine..." As the cogs whirred in her head, she stared intently at Lyra's posture, and the bench which appeared to accommodate it... _That's it!_

"Uhmm... do you want us to call a doctor or something?" Bringing herself back to reality, she turned tail as quick as the ice would let her and started galloping back home.

"_No-thanks-I'm-fine-thanks-anyway!_" she called back. Lyra and Bon-bon just looked at each other quizzically.

* * *

><p>Back at the library, she skidded to a halt in the snow outside the front door. She threw the door open and barged inside, panting. Everypony looked up in alarm.<p>

"Twilight, are you ok_AGH_!" Spike began, before Twilight grabbed him by the tail and swung him overhead to ride on her back.

"Spike you're coming with me, I need to figure something out!" She blurted frantically, levitating her scarf around him, and before he had a chance to protest, she was already out the door and off again. Her friends just exchanged puzzled looks.

"Twilight, what are you doing?"

"I need to borrow your claws for a moment..." the unicorn panted as she sped through the town. She slid to stop outside Sugarcube corner, almost overshooting the front door. She stormed in to find Mrs. Cake tending the counter, doing business as usual.

"Why, hello there Twilight Sparkle, what can I do yer for?" She asked cheerily. Twilight just bounded up to the counter, throwing Spike on to the back of her head. He clung to her mane for dear life.

"Quick, Mrs. Cake, find me a cup!" The earth pony tilted her head and quirked a brow at the request, but complied, depositing a small teacup on the counter.

"Okay dearie! I do hope y'know we don't sell 'em, so bring it back. What's the emergency?"

"Spike!" Twilight banged her head forward, tossing the baby dragon on to the counter. The teacup wobbled. Mrs. Cake gulped nervously, stretching out a hoof around it so it wouldn't fall. "Pick up that cup!"

"Uhm..." Spike scratched his head and stuck three of his prehensile claws into the handle of the cup, and clamped down around it with a fourth that was opposed to the other three. He held it up. "Oh... kay?" Twilight nodded, while Mrs. Cake watched in dire confusion.

"Alright, now Mrs. Cake, you pick it up." Twilight instructed bluntly as Spike put it down. The earth pony continued to boggle at this bizarre instruction, but nonetheless proceeded, leaning her head down and biting the handle. Craning her neck and twisting her jaw, she managed to raise the cup up at a somewhat awkward angle. "Hmm... do you use the cup that way, or..." Mrs. Cake muffled a response. Twilight smirked. "That's _all _I needed to hear!" The unicorn grabbed Spike by the tail magically, yanking him off the counter and rushing back out the door. Mrs. Cake put the cup down, confounded.

"What... just happened?"


	12. Baby Steps

As Rainbow Dash continued northwards, the sun began to dip in the sky. Not because it was getting late - it wasn't even midday - but because of the time of year. In winter, the sun never rose on some of the areas of the extreme north. Old mare's tales said that this was because they were wicked lands that Celestia punished by not bringing them the sun, but now... she wasn't so sure. The boundary between Equestria and the gryphon lands was never clearly defined in living memory, but it lay somewhere in the coniferous forests far to the north of Canterlot - an hour and a half's hard flight from Ponyville at least. She had always boasted about how pegasi don't feel the cold, but she couldn't deny that she was feeling some of the chill here. The terrain was barren tundra for the most part, flat areas blanketed in snow, with the occasional conifer tree poking out of the white sheet, and as time went on, more and more jagged mountains.

She knew she had to be somewhat subtle - ponies weren't the most welcome folks in gryphon territories. She had been to Gilda's nest once before, but that was only very briefly, and they quickly departed to the upper cloud layers - Gilda wouldn't be caught dead bringing a pony home. Against her nature, Rainbow Dash decided to err on the side of caution. She perched on a small peak overlooking the nest, looking down on the hovel built into the side of the cliff. From her brief time inside, she knew it was actually warm and comfortable; the cave was well-kept and well-furnished, though the exterior was rather spartan - a literal nest of twigs for a porch that inhabitants would land on, and a door improvised from brush (there was a sturdier door just behind it). She stood there, balanced like a rooster on a rooftop, waiting. The door was still; the mountainside tranquil. She kept her ears open. If any gryphon besides Gilda saw her, they would see not a visitor, but dinner.

After a few still, serene minutes, a tawny body, a white, feathered head, a razor-sharp gold beak and an broad pair of earthy brown wings swooped down, and perched on a rock next to Dash. Neither looked at each other.

"So how's Queen Lame-o?" the muscular bundle of feathers started. The pegasus couldn't help but smirk. They hadn't spoken since they fell out last year; she missed the sardonic wit sometimes. Nonetheless, she had a job to do.

"The book, Gilda. Is it the real deal?"

"All business then? Took you long enough to find it, flip-flop."

"Whaddaya mean?" Dash turned her head to look at Gilda, straight-faced.

"I planted that thing in that dweeb unicorn's place months ago. 'Bout the same time I met your dumb pony friends."

"But is it true?"

"If I'm honest, Dash, I don't know. I can't really say I care. Dad just kinda gave me this musty ol' tome and told me who to give it to, and I did that. It might be the _super-secret awesome history of the world_, or just a fairy tale that a few morons want to be true so badly they just act it out anyway." She sighed, turning to look at the pegasus. "You're not thinkin' of trying to..." She examined Dash's unchanging, stern expression. "... you totally are." She slapped her own forehead.

"Well, it would be _kinda _cool..." Rainbow chuckled a little, gazing up into the sky, gravity momentarily draining from the situation.

"Okay then, it's your death wish!" Gilda jeered. This snipe deflated the pegasus' momentary, idle daydream. They sat silent for a minute. The cold wind whistled around the cliff face. A light wind, not harsh enough to drown out the conversation or knock them off balance, but perhaps just enough to raise a flag. A feather from each of their wings fluttered off, and in the wind, they sailed together, briefly dancing around each other, before dropping to the ground separately as that particular gust died off. They both stared down the cliff at the snowy tundra floor below. "Y'know I'd be lying if I said I didn't care about you anymore."

"I..." Rainbow Dash sighed and looked up to the horizon. "I know."

"I can't really say I'm sorry about treating your friends like dirt. Us... gryphons I mean... we're raised to be cold-blooded like that. But I'm willing to put it behind us if it means we can hang out again." No response, visible or verbal. "Dash?" The pegasus closed her eyes. "Hey! I can't be this uncool for long, quit screwin' around!" Rainbow hesitated, before cracking the most meagre of smiles.

"I guess I did kinda miss you." she muttered. Gilda thumped her playfully on the shoulder, and both of them laughed.

"Atta girl." The two continued to sit pensively for a little while, with just the serenity of the bleak mountain. The silence was much less awkward, but still uncomfortable. After what seemed like a small eternity, Gilda broke the calm; "Oh, and..." She reached on to her back, pulling something free that was strapped to it. "If you're gonna go doing something stupid, you might want this." She held out a wooden shaft about as long as Rainbow's body, with a curved, sharp bronze blade attached to the head, the point curled sharply around like an eagle's beak. It was polished, but still looked quite old. The pegasus quickly recognised it as Spectra's spear from the story - or something very like it. Dash just stared at it for a moment. "Well come on, are you gonna take it or not? I haven't got all day!" Rainbow shook herself awake and grabbed the shaft in her teeth. When she pulled at it, Gilda was still holding it firmly. When she looked up at the gryphon, gone was the playful mirth of a moment before; she was staring daggers at her. "If you take this, you can't go back on it, Dash." Their eyes remained locked. "Just sayin'." After another moments' hesitation, she tugged at it again, and the gryphon let go with a smirk. "Now get outta here before somebody sees you!" The pegasus nodded dutifully, and took off without another word. _Heheh... moron._

* * *

><p>At Twilight's library, the remaining four friends huddled together by a lantern for warmth - open fires were never left going for long in a room full of books. Twilight had returned by then, but she marched straight into her basement and hadn't come out since. They had tried to stop her when she arrived, but she was in tunnel vision mode - she just disappeared with Spike straight down the hatch, muttering something about bone structures and weight balance.<p>

There was little in the way of conversation - they just anxiously awaited Rainbow Dash's return. None of them had anywhere to be in a hurry - the farm didn't need attention in the middle of winter, Mr. and Mrs. Cake had Sugarcube corner covered for the day, dress orders were slow this week, and most of the animals were hibernating - so they saw no real need to trek through the cold to get home.

Roughly an hour after Twilight's return, a knock on the balcony window was heard. Before anypony could get up to investigate, it swung open. A tired voice muttered to itself;

"Hah, forgot that thing opened that way..."

"_Rainbow Dash!_" The four gasped together. Three of them tripped over each other to stumble upstairs; Fluttershy just floated up gracefully.

"What did she say? What did she say?" Pinkie Pie bounced around with anticipation. While the others were still silent, their expressions echoed the query.

"Oh, the... Gilda thing?" Rainbow blinked for a moment, and inhaled. It was something she had put out of her mind on the journey home - while she thought she had made peace with the gryphon, part of her was still conflicted. She hesitated before bringing herself back to the subject at hand. "Oh... she wouldn't give me a straight answer, but she did give me... this..." She leaned over shoulder and pulled the spear from a makeshift sling with her teeth. Carefully, still not confident in its use, she brought it around and laid it on the floor. The four ponies watching gazed intently at the distinctive blade. Rainbow continued solemnly; "She wouldn't tell me exactly what I wanted to know, but she said if I was going to do something stupid, I should have this..." She looked up at the others; their expressions were of uneasy contemplation. Dash grabbed the spear again and awkwardly stuffed it back into the sling. Before it was even fully secured in the harness, the basement hatch swung open, and Twilight trotted out. Her eyes were bleary from frantic book work.

"Rainbow, you're back!" She barged up the stairs to greet the pegasus, shoving Applejack out of the way. "And you brought... what's this?" She immediately tried to get a look at the weapon strapped to Dash's back.

"Gilda gave it to me. Shame she didn't give me many answers with it."

"This... this is a gryphon spear!"

"... _duh._" Dash's eyes rolled.

"It's all adding up... everything is starting to make sense!" Twilight began to witter to herself, pacing around.

"Uh, Twi..." Applejack interrupted. Rarity had to physically stop Twilight with a hoof before she paid attention. "Ah think you might need to fill the rest of us in, we're..." the Earth pony looked around at her visibly baffled friends. "... pretty stumped." Twilight chuckled nervously.

"Right... sorry, my mind has been going a mile a minute today. It started earlier this morning, when I went out for a walk. I was thinking about what the story said about hands and posture, and I started noticing some things that I just never thought about before, because I thought they were normal. Like, benches. Why do we even have them when we sit on the ground all the time? Or, or just think about the amount of stuff around a normal house that just isn't designed with hooves in mind! Cups, plates, quills, tools... We're all used to using our mouths, but have you ever thought about how awkward it is most of the time? I mean, why do we even have a store like Quills 'n' Sofas when only unicorns can use quills, and nopony sits in a way that would need the back part of a sofa?" The other ponies began to ponder and puzzle over these ideas.

"Well, there's Lyra..." Rainbow pointed out.

"It does look _quite_ uncomfortable sitting like that though." Rarity answered. Twilight nodded.

"My point exactly. These are things designed for a different kind of body shape. And once I was thinking about that, it got me thinking about a few _other _things that don't make sense. Like Winter! If Winter is something that we ponies set up and take down every year, why do we do it at all? It has no productive reason to exist! Unless it's something that happens _anyway_, and the tradition of Winter Wrap-Up is just for show! Every Spring, all you're doing is clearing snow and pushing clouds around!" Everypony was hit quite hard by this thought. Winter Wrap-Up was a tradition deeply ingrained into all of them except Twilight, and the idea that it was a lie was tough to swallow. "Just think about the way we're taught to look at the world! We're taught that it's strange and unnatural for animals, plants and the weather to function without pony interference, but that's just what it does in the Everfree Forest. If this is what happens anyway, then all this does is make ponies live in fear of the outside world!" The ponies exchanged shocked glances. "Anyway. The spear just adds to the evidence, but my theory still isn't complete. I still haven't accounted for Luna, the Elements of Harmony or the nature of Cutie Marks, and hard evidence is still pretty scarce."

"So... " Applejack gulped. "Yer sayin'..."

"Yes. We need to get to Canterlot and cast that spell."

"This... this is insanity!" Rarity barked and paced uneasily. Fluttershy was on Twilight's bed, hiding under a pillow. "_Ugh,_ this has to be some kind of nightmare!" She clopped over to the headboard of the bed and started thumping her forehead on it. "Wake up Rarity, wake _up!_" she screamed. She soon stopped, resting her head on the board, panting. Everypony else stared. "It's... it's not a dream, is it?"

"Nope." Applejack shook her head gravely. "Still not sure if ah'm buyin' the whole thing though..."

"Well _I_ think that if there's even a chance the story is true, it's worth a shot." Rainbow fluttered between them, floating on her back. "The stakes are too high not to."

"Yer just itchin' for adventure, aren'tcha?" Applejack quipped wryly. Rainbow shrugged with a little nonchalant chuckle.

"I suppose if I'm ever going to sleep again, I'll have to go along with this..." Rarity sighed, rubbing her head.

"If you guys are in, I'm in too!" Pinkie giggled. "It might be fun!" Applejack quirked a brow to her blasé indifference.

"Fluttershy? How about you?" Twilight peered over to the bed, and with a faint glow of her horn, lifted the pillow. The pegasus simply quivered and covered her face.

"Y-you guys can go on without me..."

"Well, you heard her! Let's gHLLK!" Rainbow had started toward the door, only to for Applejack to yank her back by the tail.

"We're not just gonna up 'n' leave ya here by yerself. That ain't right."

"No, really, it's... it's fine..." Fluttershy retreated behind the bed. Twilight sighed, and tossed the pillow to the side.

"Fluttershy... I'm really sorry to have to force something like this on you, but this is something we're all in together. I mean, you said it yourself, that we all had a special connection before we all met. And if what's happened since last night is anything to go by, it's... it's a connection that goes much deeper than any of us thought possible." The pegasus just trembled. "I know this a huge task, and we're all a bit scared, but we're not going alone. We're doing this together, among friends." Twilight smiled. Fluttershy poked her nose up from behind the bed and looked around the room. All of her friends were looking at her, wearing earnest expressions ranging from comforting smiles to genuine concern. With a deep breath and a moment to gather her courage, she pulled herself up from behind her cover. She took another moment to steady herself before announcing in the most assertive tone her soft-spoken mien could muster;

"Alright. Let's go."


	13. Storm World

They wasted no time in preparing. Thankfully, no storms were scheduled until next week, so they would be able to travel through the night if necessary. They planned to travel light - they had barely a single saddlebag of luggage between them. Rainbow Dash held on to the spear, and for it Rarity quickly prepared a new, sturdier, and arguably more fashionable sling. Twilight brought a couple of scrolls and a book for reference, and Applejack packed a small food supply, just in case. These preparations were complete in under half an hour, and they made haste to Canterlot without even tidying up the library. They told nopony where they were headed, or even that they would be gone - they didn't expect to be in Canterlot for very long, possibly returning before morning. To help throw any pursuers, they first headed to Fluttershy's cottage separately, and from there set off together.

The journey passed quietly. Everypony had too much on their mind for idle chat. Spike slept on Twilight's back most of the way there, and Rainbow Dash walked for a change, to let her wings rest. The cold was more tolerable in the sunlight, which was part of their rationale for leaving so soon - it was just past lunchtime when they left. Twilight found herself having to admit some of the advantages of Celestia's alleged curse - one of the things she had been studying previously, and contemplating to pass the time now, was the physiology of the ponies in the story. While their ancestors' bipedal form freed up two limbs to accommodate hands, it also made walking quite slow and inefficient compared to the four-legged form they were used to. She figured this might be the reason why Dawn and Spectra took so long to make the same journey - she guessed eight hours with enhanced means, not counting their stop to sleep. Modern ponies could walk from Ponyville to Canterlot in under six hours without the need for much of a break.

The sun set during their final approach to Canterlot, and already the chill was setting in. Hidden in a grove of bare trees a few hundred yards from the city's front gate, Twilight pulled out a pencil and began to sketch out a rough floorplan of the palace on one of the scrolls, her plans lit only by the moonlight reflected from the snow and the faint glow of her horn.

"Alright... from what I can tell, modern Canterlot is built directly on top of the old city, and the old palace is pretty much under the basement of the current one. Going through the top would certainly draw attention from Celestia and her guards, but if we can get in from underneath, then we can bypass all that. Some of the old streets were converted into sewers, so if we can break into the sewage network..."

"_Sewers?_ You simply must be joking, Twilight!" Rarity protested. Applejack couldn't help but snicker.

"I'm afraid this is the safest way in. Anyway, once we're into the sewers, we should be able to enter the old palace easily. We just need a way in... Rainbow! Scout ahead to see if there's a maintenance entrance in the side of the cliff."

"_On it!_" the pegasus replied dutifully, and shot off, leaving a rush of cold wind and snow in her wake.

"We're gonna have some serious problems with the cold tonight..." Twilight sighed, shivering a little as she shook off the spray of snow.

"Really? I didn't no- oh..." Fluttershy spoke up, for the first time since they left Ponyville.

"I'll see what fires I can stir up, but we need to find some shelter pretty s-" Twilight's speculation was interrupted by another thin wave of snow, heralding Dash's swift return. "-oon." She wiped the flakes from her face, and glared at the pleased-looking pegasus before continuing. "Find anything?"

"No doors, but there's a _huge_ open storm drain at the bottom of the mountain!" Dash pointed a hoof at a large opening in the mountain face, near the bottom of the cliff, showing up as a large black gash against the glistening, snow-covered rocks and trees. There was at least three hundred feet between the drain and the city.

"_Egh_, there's no way we'll make the whole trip in a night!" Applejack groaned. "I say make camp here and go for it in the mornin'."

"Actually, Applejack, now is the best time to enter the drains. In the morning the drains will have a higher water level from snow melt, and that far underground, daylight won't make it any warmer. I think we should try to get in and out before morning." Twilight replied, starting down the winding mountain path. One by one, the other ponies followed.

* * *

><p>With the daylight vanishing on the Cutie Mark Crusaders' investigation, the three cold, tired fillies trudged up to the door of Twilight's library. They had been searching around town all day - they called in at the Carousel Boutique to find it closed, they stopped at Sugarcube Corner, where Mrs. Cake said Twilight was around earlier (and they also learned that Pinkie Pie was missing too!) but not seen since, and they had even trekked into the Everfree Forest to ask Zecora if she'd seen them.<p>

"Alright, this _must_ be it, we've tried _everywhere_ else in town!" Applebloom wandered up to the door and prepared to knock.

"Yeah, plus I can't feel my hooves... can we go home after this?" Sweetie Belle whimpered, shaking her numb limbs as she walked. Scootaloo gave her a jocular shove. The door creaked ajar at the push of Applebloom's knock. She raised an eyebrow and hesitantly entered the building.

"Uh... hello? Y'all in here?" she called. Silence. "_Dangit!_" Scootaloo zipped by with a pipe in her mouth. When she puffed on it, it blew bubbles. She leaned over the piles of things left lying around, like everypony was out of here in a hurry: books, pillows, a couple of apples...

"Hmm... _methinks something fishy is afoot._" The little pegasus grunted, putting on the gruffest voice she could muster. Applebloom sniffed around the remains of hay on the floor by the open basement hatch. Sweetie Belle went over to the lit lantern and parked herself in front of it, in an attempt to warm some feeling back into her legs. As she sat down, she noticed one book lying separate from the rest, opened out on the floor. She pulled it over and turned the front cover over. _The Birth Of Celestia_, read the title. A couple of purple hairs bookmarked random pages. Intrigued, she began to read, lest this be a clue that passes under their noses.

* * *

><p>Twilight and Rarity lit up their horns as they entered the drains. Just inside the natural-looking cave was the end of a red-brick tunnel, three or four yards wide, opening out into an empty gully that ran down the hillside. The mud outside the cave was completely frozen, and a layer of ice caked the brick floor, making it slippery and glassy. This was no trouble for either of the pegasi or Pinkie Pie (nopony knows where she kept those ice skates), but the other three found it hard going. They had only been struggling up the main pipe for about thirty seconds before Twilight gave up. She paused, her hooves glowed briefly, before she continuing much more comfortably. As she walked, the ice around her hooves melted like they were hot irons, clearing a path for the ponies behind her. Pinkie decided to ditch the skates and follow on behind them, after she crashed crossing the ice-free trail.<p>

"Hey Twilight, why does Canterlot have storm drains anyway? If the weather is scheduled, then there shouldn't be overflow, right?" Rainbow Dash hovered in behind the unicorn. Twilight smirked, quietly satisfied with herself; she was getting her friends to start questioning their surroundings.

"My guess is that Canterlot gets a lot more rain than Ponyville since it's closer to the sea, and in some seasons the weatherponies can't break all the storms that come Canterlot's way, so they just pass it off as 'planned'." As the moonlight faded behind them, their words started to echo around the tunnels. Over about fifty feet, the tunnel in front of them began to curl upwards, soon becoming too steep to climb. Rainbow continued up the incline, her flying easier in the more humid air. She came to a halt with a loud clattering sound that reverberated around the cavern above. She felt around where she had hit her head - some kind of interlocking mesh. Twilight shot a small orb of light up to get a better look. It passed through the grate unhindered, showing up the thin wiring. The grate was mounted on a metal frame, locked against another mounted on the wall. She thought for a moment, and turned back down with a smirk.

"Hey Applejack," she whispered. "Think you can buck this thing open?"

"Ah sure as hay can, just gimme a boost!" The earth pony trotted up as far as the incline would let her and wheeled around, her hind hooves up against the wall. Rainbow got below her and put her front hooves under Applejack's, supporting her weight. Slowly, they ascended to the grate, Applejack 'walking' backwards up the wall with her hind hooves. Soon they were in position, Dash braced against the opposite side of the pipe, Applejack resting her hind hooves on the grate. She kicked off the grate and reared her legs back. Simultaneously, she struck both legs out, and Dash pushed forward for extra force. Her hooves connected with the metal mesh with an almighty _bang_, and the grate swung out. However, this is as far as Dash's plan had gotten. Now unbalanced, Applejack fell to the tunnel's icy floor, and slid down the curve as far as the cleared path behind Twilight, and rolled to a halt. Rainbow Dash, while not victim to gravity, was distracted enough not to notice the grate swinging back down towards her. It smacked her against the wall, stunning and winding her. She crumpled and slowly fluttered to the ground. Twilight nudged the two stunned ponies with a hoof. They merely groaned in response.

"C'mon guys, we don't have time for injury!" While she prodded them, a rusty metal ladder slid down from the opening, clattering on the bricks just behind them. Rarity, her flank just inches from its path, squealed and jumped away in fright. The unicorns stared befuddled at the ladder while the noises echoed to nothing. Twilight could hear Fluttershy trembling behind her. Spike hadn't even stirred. But where was Pin-

"Let's _go_, silly fillies! You guys are _super_ lucky I found this ladder just sitting around up here, otherwise we would have..." Pinkie Pie dropped her head down a few moments after the ladder, and disappeared back up, babbling on incoherently about this and that. Twilight breathed a sigh of relief, and started to climb, with Rarity not far behind, and Fluttershy flying up with them. Applejack and Rainbow Dash slowly got themselves together and followed. Up top, Pinkie Pie was still wittering away. Twilight jammed a hoof in her mouth as soon as she reached the top. "... and then that's how I found Gum_mph!_"

"Pinkie, we don't know where there might be guards, so I'd appreciate it if you _put a sock in it._" she whispered harshly. Pinkie Pie responded by pulling a brightly coloured hoof-sock from her mane and stuffing it into her mouth, looking rather pleased with herself. Twilight raised an eyebrow.

The orb the unicorn had sent up earlier fizzled out. She muttered under her breath and prepared another floating light, and sent this one up to the top of the room. This structure appeared to be much older than the relatively recent exit tunnel - the walls were all large limestone blocks, and tall archways dominated the room. They were standing on a small stone platform in the middle of the hall, barely big enough for the six of them to stand on, in the middle of a layer of inert blackness. The unshimmering, hazy reflections in this black film, broken up by the occasional grains of dust, indicated that it was ice. Pinkie Pie poked the ice to test its thickness. It cracked at the gentlest of prods, and water began to seem through the cracks. She gulped, and reasoned that this ice probably wasn't the best for skating.

"_Wow..._" Rainbow Dash wheezed as she fluttered up to look around.

"This must be one of the main outlets. There's tunnels in almost every direction..." Twilight mused. "Let's see, up, up..."

"Up there!" Applejack pointed straight up at the ceiling, where a hole was positioned almost directly over them. "I'll bet that their tunnel leads up to the ol' city!"

"I might have been wrong about the drains, this place looks old enough to be part of ancient Canterlot. We just need to get up there..."

"And across this ice." Rarity added. "It's wafer thin, and after taking that knock, I wouldn't trust Rainbow Dash to be able to carry all of us over, even with Fluttershy's help."

"Hmm..." Twilight looked around for anything that might help. There was a stone platform not far away, but nothing that might aid in getting across it, except... "Aha! If we can get that ladder off its rails, we can use it as a bridge between here and that big stone thing over there!" She let her light go out again, and took a psychic grip of the ladder. "Rarity, help me out here, I want to try and conserve as much energy as possible for the spell." The other unicorn nodded, and her magical torch was also replaced with a soft glow. Fluttershy clung to Rainbow Dash's leg, shivering a little. Slowly, they lifted the ladder up from the exit tunnel. It creaked and scratched against its rails, gingerly rising from the hole, inch by inch. The lifting was no real problem for Twilight; she had lifted many times the weight of the ladder with her magic before, but too much exertion now would really make things more difficult later. Minutes passed uneasily, with just the creaking and groaning of metal scraping against rusted metal. Each length freed of the corroded rocker lowered the friction of the system, letting them lift just a little bit faster. With the ladder about three-quarters free, they lost control. The remaining part of the rocker gave way. With the effort they had behind the ladder, it shot up into the air, breaking their grip on it. For a silent moment, they lost track of it completely, the glow of their horns extinguished. It wasn't until a second and a half later that they found the ladder again, when Twilight lit up her horn again to throw some light on the subject. It was just in time to watch the ladder crash through the ice and disappear into the reservoir. The ponies blinked and stared. Spike was still snoozing quietly through all this.

"I'll go look for another way up then!" Rainbow Dash announced after a few moments to let the situation sink in.


	14. All For One

"Can I get a little light up here?" Rainbow Dash called, staring into the darkness of the storm drain. Beyond the fifteen feet or so of light around the two unicorns, there was only pitch black. Twilight summoned another glowing orb to follow the pegasus as she explored the hub. She zipped this way and that, looking for anything that might come loose. The central drain was quite spacious, about fifty lengths along each side and seventy tall, and converging on the hall were too similarly roomy side drains with arched ceilings, branching into smaller tunnels again. The drain system itself was remarkably well built; the network of channels appeared to function by itself, and many of the maintenance walkways were in various states of decay. Only the stone ones seemed to be still functional - many metal components were rusted down to brittle frames, and wooden parts would have long since rotted to nothing. It occurred to Rainbow that they might be the first ponies down here in decades, maybe even centuries. Metal ladders corroded to dust, gaps where wooden platforms had rotted away and not been replaced, broken rope bridges... _Wait a second, a broken rope bridge!_

She nearly passed it by completely; hanging from two posts on a stone walkway, mounted on the side of the central hall, about halfway up, were two grimey ropes, with a number of blackened wooden planks between them. She traced the path from the bridge to see where it led. Indeed, this seemed to be one of the few (vaguely) maintained routes through the drains. A path looped around the hall once, with gaps bridged by softened planks or rope bridges, many of them looking quite hastily constructed. Lo and behold, the path converged on the centre of the room at the top, leading to a series of metal rungs built into the side of the hole Applejack had pointed out earlier. Excited, she returned to the rope ladder and took one of the ropes in her teeth, and tried not to taste it. She pulled it towards the central platform, gingerly, since it was probably not in the best shape... She muffled a yelp and came to a sudden halt about half a length in front of the platform. She was about to explain the situation to her friends, until their collective grimace told her she didn't need to.

"That's the best you could find, Rainbow? That ol' thing looks like it could snap any minute!" Applejack complained.

"Short of fishing the ladder out of the water, I think it might be our best option." Twilight frowned. "Fluttershy, help Rainbow hold it up." Fluttershy gulped and bit her lip as she took position. Reluctantly, she took the other rope in her mouth and held it taut, bringing the planks on the rope bridge level. "Alright. Rarity, out of the rest of us, you're the lightest, you go first. I'll try and steady you with magic, I suggest you try and do the same." Twilight looked over to the other unicorn earnestly. Rarity looked back at her, then to the bridge, then back to her again, boggling incredulously.

"I suppose we're beyond joking here..." she sighed and stepped over to face the ladder. She kept her horn light on, while Twilight let hers, and the orb following Rainbow Dash, go out, in order to focus on lifting Rarity. Rarity reared up and pounced at the first few steps. Her reduced weight caught her off guard - she flew a few feet higher in the air than she had anticipated, and shakily landed on the first few boards. They were slippery, and her hooves gave her little grip. They slipped off to the outside, and she fell a short distance, her belly smacking on the planks. In panic, her light went out. She screwed up her face, preparing for an ice bath... that never came. After a moment or two she breathed a sigh of relief, her heart pounding away. "I'm... I'm okay!" she called back, trembling. She lit up her horn again, and gingerly pulled herself back upright. She took a moment to carefully balance herself between the two ropes, hooking her hooves around the otherwise useless, gripless planks. Cautiously, she began to climb the bridge like a ladder, grappling around one plank at a time. The rest of the climb proceeded as such, all of her focus on her delicate climb, to the point that her horn lamp occasionally fizzled and spluttered. She couldn't be happier to have all four hooves firmly on the ground at the top.

"Okay..." Twilight sighed, her glow dissipating as she let Rarity go. "Now we know the bridge holds, let's send up the heaviest. Pinkie Pie, you're... Pinkie?" She looked around herself, the pink earth pony nowhere to be seen. Rarity craned her neck over the ledge to try and lend her light to the search.

"Hi!" Pinkie squeaked. Rarity squealed and very nearly fell off the ledge in fright - Pinkie appeared right behind her, beaming. It took a moment for the unicorn to respond in a muted yell.

"_Don't... do that!_"

"How did... what... y'know, I won't ask..." Twilight rubbed her temple with a hoof. "Applejack, your turn." She sighed, and again turned to concentrate on lifting. Applejack leaped boldly at the bridge, landing with a _doof_ in much the same position as Rarity had. One of the planks cracked. The crack echoed around, eliciting a universal gulp (except from Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, who couldn't wait to get these icky ropes out of their mouths). With a little less gusto, Applejack righted herself and began her climb. Without a convenient torch on her forehead, she was a little more wary going up, and was as relieved as Rarity was when she staggered on to the platform.

Twilight gulped as she stepped up to the plate herself. She set Spike down on the floor - Fluttershy could come back for him in a moment. This was going to be tricky - she had seen how much Rarity needed to concentrate on climbing, so she wouldn't be able to make herself an awful lot lighter. At the same time, since Rarity's specialty wasn't itself magic, Twilight doubted she would be able to concentrate on illumination and levitation of a whole pony at the same time, and do both effectively. She gulped, and hoped the two pegasi and the bridge could take it. She reared back, and took a leap of faith. _Whap._ She landed on the bridge, she knew that much. She hooked her front hooves around a rung and let herself slide back, like she had seen the other two do. This gave her a moment of relief, before... _crack_. When she slumped into the same landing position the other two had, the last board took another impact, and it was close to splitting in two. She gulped and started to struggle up. _Crack_. The plank was getting worse. She started to sweat. _Crreeaaak_. She could feel it bowing out, prompting her to hook her front hooves firmly around the more intact plank in front of her, before... _snap_. The board supporting her abdomen gave out, and she swung around, clinging to the other one for dear life.

Rainbow Dash made a snap decision. Rather than leave Twilight swinging there, she spat out the rope and bolted underneath her. Before she could fall even a foot, she had positioned herself under the unicorn, letting her haunches sit on her shoulders. The weight shift prompted Fluttershy to swallow her terror, ditch the bridge aswell, and throw her front hooves around Twilight's torso. Both pegasi beat their wings furiously, desperately trying to exert lift. _Dang, Rarity was right, that whack really did take it out of me..._ Dash thought. Ordinarily lifting a pony would be no problem for her, and with some momentum behind her, she could lift several - such as when she rescued Rarity and three of the Wonderbolts at the Best Young Flyer competition. However, the injury she had received earlier was really taking its toll here. Even with Fluttershy's help, they were barely keeping Twilight level. Twilight was far too panicked to help herself.

"_Rarity, lift!_" Rainbow cried out. The bright, white light disappeared, and the same soft glow replaced it, encircling the three of them. Slowly, they began to rise up, both pegasi still flapping frantically. Rarity's strain was audible. Even if she did help with the ladder, it was still no heavier than a single pony, and Twilight did most of the lifting anyway. They inched upwards and forwards, closer to the ledge, second by second. Applejack just looked on as she watched the building fatigue in the three ponies' faces, merely outlined in the soft glow; right now, there was nothing she could do... or was there? She checked her hat for her trusty lasso. _Ah, horsefeathers._ Gone. However, it wasn't long before another idea grabbed her. She grabbed Pinkie Pie and shoved her off the side of the platform. Before Pinkie had the chance to look behind her, to ask Applejack just how _crazy_ she was, she stopped falling, something holding her over the edge. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw Applejack with a firm teeth grip on her tail, and noticed her own legs were braced against the edge of the platform. With just a nod, she instantly understood. With this extra length's reach, she could hook a hoof around Twilight's hind leg and pull her in. Once Applejack felt the weight shift, she yanked back too. This was enough to bring Twilight, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash onto the ledge, bowling into the three already there. The six lay there in the darkness, panting in relief. Spike still slept peacefully down below.

* * *

><p>The other bridges weren't anywhere as bad as the first one, and while it was still nerve-wracking to cross them, there were no major incidents. Twilight let Fluttershy hold on to Spike for the time being, a responsibility the pegasus relished. It took them about ten minutes to reach the very top. The ladder inside the funnel extended onto a small stone tab projecting from the wall, about two lengths wide. The slip earlier had somewhat broken the ice with most of the ponies; they were starting to break out of their preoccupation and talk among themselves. That is, with the exception of Twilight; she stayed in front, still as absorbed in her own thoughts as ever. When they reached the top, Twilight just stared at the hole in the ceiling, saying nothing. After a brief pause, Rainbow Dash took off past her.<p>

"Okay Twi, you're the boss, no need to shout!" she jeered as she disappeared into the tunnel.

"Oh... right... yeah..." Twilight sighed. Rainbow was only gone for a moment when a gurgling screech rang out of the tunnel. Everypony gasped and looked up in time to watch a cyan blur tumble limply from the hole, and accelerate into the darkness below. Twilight peered over the edge, the bottom so far down that only the faintest shimmer of light reached the bottom. She scanned the ice for any break where the pegasus might have fallen. There seemed to be nothing, indicating she fell in the...

"_Gotcha!_" Rainbow popped out from under the platform they were standing on. Twilight yelped and fell over backwards in fright. She heaved and panted while Dash brought herself back up to the top, perfectly intact and giggling to herself. "Yeah, it's safe up there." Twilight grumbled and stood up, getting back to inspect the situation. _Well that confirms it, this place is part of old Canterlot. There's no way this ladder was designed to be climbed with hooves..._

"Alright, here's how this is going to work. The ladder here inverts about halfway up, so to climb it safely, we'll need to go up one-by-one with Rainbow or Fluttershy at our backs. I suggest Rainbow and Applejack go first, since you'll be best able to deal with it if something goes wrong."

"Right."

"Got it." The two ponies nodded, and got into position. Applejack propped herself up on the ladder with her front hooves, and Dash got behind her. They'd climbed rockfaces this way before - no sweat. With their bodies vertical, they moved their front legs back and linked them at the elbows. Dash leaned forward a little to keep her wings free, and began to flap just enough to stay level. Applejack began to climb the ladder with just her hind hooves, balancing against Rainbow.

"That's... not quite what I had in mind..." Twilight thought out loud. "... actually it looks safer than what I was thinking of, good job!" Rung by rung, the two carefully ascended past the inversion, with Rainbow taking most of the weight. It was a bit of a strain, but Applejack helped ease the weight by taking a rung in her teeth every now and then. Before long, they were up to the level above. Once Applejack was safe on level ground, Rainbow stopped for a breather. "Alright, Fluttershy, you take Rarity now." Both ponies gulped. Hesitantly, they adopted the same position Rainbow Dash and Applejack had, front legs linked behind their backs. Fortunately, this ladder was nowhere near as flimsy as the rope bridge, and the metal rungs, while rusty, were easily strong enough to take a pony's weight. With this comfort in mind, Rarity diverted attention from light to levitating as much of her own weight as she could, to ease the burden on Fluttershy. At the start of the climb, it was easy enough with the added lift; it became crucial after the inversion. As they neared the top, Rainbow Dash flared out her wings, ready to rush down if Fluttershy found herself in trouble. Luckily, she managed it, barely, and Applejack helped Rarity to safety. Tagging out, Fluttershy slumped next to the two of them, panting, while Rainbow went back for Pinkie Pie.

Much to Rainbow Dash's bafflement, as they ascended the ladder, Pinkie Pie appeared to invert _with _the ladder, and the pegasus found herself not doing much work at all. However, she wasn't about to call attention to it, lest she lose the benefit. Confused but relieved, she deposited Pinkie safely up top. Finally, barely recovered from carrying Rarity, Fluttershy got up to take Twilight. But before she even left, she felt herself stopped by a hoof on her shoulder. When she looked up, it was Dash, with a concerned look on her face.

"Are you sure you can do it?" Rainbow asked. Fluttershy took a deep breath and nodded.

"Yes. I'm sure." As she swept down, Dash kept a close eye on her, ready to jump down at the first sign of trouble. Twilight was already in position, and, familiar with the routine by now, were off quickly. Rarity held her horn over the edge to replace the light from Twilight's. "Twilight," Fluttershy spoke, barely above a whisper. "What's wrong?" Twilight stopped climbing for a moment.

"Fluttershy, this is _hardly_ the time!"

"Once we get to the top I won't get a chance to talk to you by yourself..." Fluttershy grunted, and they started moving again. Twilight sighed. "You've been keeping to yourself since the... _ngh_... rope bridge and I thought... _ugh!_ Something was up..."

"I've been... I... I've been focusing on the mission. The spell." They stopped again as Twilight's focus on keeping herself light waned a little.

"Twilight... I spend long enough not talking to know focused quiet from worried quiet." They hung there for a moment, with just the sound of wings beating. Twilight shook her head and tried to keep her concentration on the spell, and they started to move again.

"Alright, if you _really_ want to know _right _now, I feel like I'm slowing you guys down and putting you in unnecessary danger!" she blurted out._ Maybe if I give her her darn meaningful conversation she'll get on with it_.

"That's not true at all," Fluttershy was beginning to sound more breathless by the minute. "What happened earlier was an accident... and... _agh!_ We helped you because we're your friends... remember? You said your... _ugh_... self, we're doing this together... among friends!" These words sparked something in Twilight's mind. She stopped again as cogs whirred away in her head, processing the callback. The realisation slowly dawned on her, her self-doubt beginning to fall away. Unfortunately, this wasn't the only thing beginning to fall away. She felt a sudden upward jerk, bringing her back to reality. She looked down to see Rainbow Dash helping prop the two of them up.

"Easy there Sleeping Beauty, this ain't naptime!" With her help, they easily made it up the rest of the way. Applejack and Pinkie Pie hauled Twilight up to safety, and the two pegasi immediately followed. Fluttershy and Twilight exchanged glances for a moment, both panting. They both smiled, and Twilight lit up her horn again to lead on.

"Alright. Let's go."


	15. Sewer Rat

While Rainbow Dash went back to retrieve Spike, Twilight began to pace their new location, examining its layout. It was like a long, round corridor, running perpendicular to the exit tunnel, and bowing in the middle, so the opening was at the lowest point; an inflow pipe. Above a certain point, the ceiling remained flat while the floor kept rising, so that after about ten yards, the pipe was too tight to navigate. This told Twilight two things; first, that the pipe was not the way to go. Second, that they were just below street level. She began to scan the ceiling for routes up. _Aha!_ In a flash of fortune, she found a ladder mounted in a recess in the side of the pipe, leading up toward a metal cover. There was no moon or starlight visible through it - they weren't going to come up in the middle of Canterlot. Smirking with a sense of victory, she started to climb. The last length or so was quite tight, and she found herself pulling her body right in to the ladder to squeeze through. Another feature of the drains clearly not designed for the modern pony form. At the top, she thumped her hoof against the hole cover. It budged, but didn't come loose. She tried again, and this time it popped off and slid to the side, allowing her to put her head through.

A blend of the foulest odours assaulted her immediately. The pungent stench of sewage was omnipresent; the intensity of the potent fumes made her dizzy. She found herself with little option but to beat a hasty retreat down the hole and do her best to pull the cover back on. She coughed and spluttered on the way back down the ladder, and turned to her comrades, telling them simply;

"Yep... that's the sewer alright..."

"What's wrong Twi? A lil' stink getcha down?" Applejack joked.

"_Eugh_... the smell isn't the only thing we have to worry about. Unlike storm drains, sewers don't have access to open air, so that's all toxic gases up there." Twilight wheezed. At that moment, Rainbow Dash returned with Spike. The little dragon stirred at Dash's somewhat less-than-gentle treatment, culminating in a little sneeze, shooting a tiny fireball. "Which... gives us another problem..."

"Wh... what's that?"

"Sewer gases are highly flammable." Twilight paced and thought, muttering to herself. Everypony watched anxiously. Fluttershy gazed worriedly at Spike. "If... no, that would be too... hmm... wake him up. Let's see what he thinks." Fluttershy hesitated a moment, before turning to Spike and lightly nudging him. She whispered softly to him to try and rouse him gently.

"Wakey wakey, sleepyhead... c'mon Spike... time to rise and shine..." Slowly, Spike stretched and yawned, and with a little blink, he opened his eyes.

"Wh... whuhh... where are we? Is it morning already?" He sat up, rubbed his eyes and sniffed the air. "And what's that smell?"

"We're in the storm drains under Canterlot, and we've hit a problem." Twilight began bluntly, pacing away from Spike.

"Rarity needs rescuing? Not to worry, Spike is on the case!" He jumped to his feet and started forward, only to trip over when something caught his tail. When he looked round, he saw Rarity with a hoof on his tail and little smirk on her face.

"I'm fine, Romeo."

"Actually Spike, the problem is you." Twilight turned and looked at him flatly. He gulped.

"M-me?"

"Well, sort of. You see, to get to the old palace, we have to cross some old streets that have been converted into sewers. The sewage releases gases that can catch fire, and as I'm sure you know very well..." As if on cue, Spike hiccuped, releasing a little curl of green flame. "... you're a walking lighter." He frowned and twiddled his fingers for a moment.

"Maybe... maybe I could stay here! I could guard the entrance!" He bounced up again, excitement returning.

"Well, this would be our exit if anything..."

"Even better!" He grinned, doing a few karate chops in the air. Upon attempting a kick, he flipped over and landed on his face.

"If the choice is between staying here and coming with us," Rainbow interrupted. "I say he stays here, Twilight. Better he does nothing than come with us and blow all of Canterlot sky-high." She gestured the blast by throwing her front legs in the air and waving them around wildly. Twilight inhaled deeply and sighed.

"Alright. Just... stay safe, Spike."

"Don't worry about me, Twilight!" Spike stood up straight and saluted. Twilight went to light up another enchantment, but was stopped by a light shove, distracting her and stopping the spell. Rarity had a hoof on her shoulder.

"I've got this one, darling. You need to save your strength." Taking Twilight's place, Rarity bowed her head to Spike, and with a couple of seconds' wind-up, she summoned a small floating light that sailed over to Spike, and circled around him like a firefly. "That should help you see while we're gone." She smiled at Spike, who wore a giddy grin, eyes half-closed, tongue hanging from his open jaw. Applejack snapped him out of his daze with a light _bap_ with her hoof and a chuckle.

"Easy there loverboy!"

"Alright, crossing the sewer... as long as we have light, we should be able to cross just fine one at a time. I'll go on ahead and find the palace. Clean air from above should filter down where structures are joined together. If I wait there and hold my light out, you guys should be able to follow, right?"

"We should go in pairs." Applejack added. "It ain't safe travelling alone."

"Right. Hmm... you, Rainbow and Fluttershy are best able to help another pony if they get in trouble, so... Fluttershy, you're with me, Rainbow, you take Pinkie Pie, and Applejack, you go with Rarity."

"Ah, horsefeathers... I mean... ah, horsefeathers..." Applejack muttered. Twilight started up the ladder, Fluttershy in tow. Observing how tight the tunnel was, Dash turned to Pinkie and stated, matter-of-factly;

"You go first, I'll push."

* * *

><p>Twilight took a deep breath and held it before pushing her head through the hole, prompting Fluttershy to follow suit. The sewer was much more tolerable this way. She paused to get her bearings while Fluttershy struggled from the chute. This was her first good look at the interior of the sewer. They were standing on a grimy cobblestone floor, not more than three lengths from a river of dirty sludge. <em>Well there's your problem.<em> Above the street level, shimmering in her horn's light, she could see old buildings, some of them collapsed and caved in, others truncated at the sewer's ceiling, where, presumably, the basements of houses above began. The doorways were noticeably taller than most of the doors she normally saw. Many edifices were filled in with dirt and stone, probably for the stability of the city above. She thought of the unsavoury types that might congregate down here, especially at night - but quickly dismissed the thought. _They'd need to be pretty desperate to put up with toxic sewage fumes._ As soon as Fluttershy was free of the hole, they set off.

Initially, all Twilight had to go on for navigation was dead reckoning. _Let's see... we came in at that angle... then circled around the storm drains a few times, and then the pipe was at that angle... ugh!_ Giving up on that, she just tried to follow this road. Her logic was that, surely the widest road in the city would lead to the palace. With no skyline to follow, this was her best guess. One direction was blocked by the open sewer, meaning she only had one other to follow. This street connected perpendicularly to another, much wider street, with planters in the middle of it, the trees within having died long ago. The street seemed to be on a hill, sloping from left to right from her perspective. This gave her some idea of the city's orientation. To the right, more streets had been dug up to make way for sewage lines, only vaguely visible in the darkness. To the left, there was a large open space, like a courtyard, and in the distance there was a building much more ornate than the rest, like a ruined cathedral, with the faintest of lights shimmering from empty windows and cracks in the masonry. _The palace! They must be using it as a storage cellar or something. _She quickly shot a little beacon at the ground, leaving a little swirling light hovering at the street corner, and turned to gallop toward the palace. She could hear Fluttershy sticking close behind. After a hundred yards, they entered the courtyard, and Twilight ran out of breath; the sprint had taken more of a toll on her than she had expected it to. Her reserve broke, and she burst out panting. The fetid smell still filled the air, but it wasn't as bad here; in her mind, this reassured her that the palace exhumed fresh air. They skidded to a halt just in front of the palace door, blocked up by the collapsed archway. Twilight propped herself up on some of the stones to get a look at one of the gaps in the blockage. There was a torch or two inside, and a soft, warm breeze blew from the hole.

"Fluttershy..." she panted. "... I think... I think it's safe to breathe here." The pegasus exhaled deeply, and sank to her haunches, huffing and puffing. Too exhausted to even mutter to herself, she just thought; _Who knew adventuring could be so intense? I could really go for a bath and a glass of warm milk right now..._ A minute or two later, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie appeared from the darkness and skidded to a halt next to them. The sprint had been no problem for Rainbow, while Pinkie Pie just collapsed and wheezed as soon as she reached safety. Another short while later, Applejack and Rarity arrived. Twilight was slightly surprised that Applejack _hadn't_ splashed Rarity with sewage on the way. As they recovered, Twilight looked around for ways in. The hall was so close, yet so far - she could see the hall through the hole in the rubble, containing just a single torch and lots of debris. The back wall was filled in with dirt up as far as the altar, obscuring the window. Twilight paced around, muttering and contemplating the problem. Rainbow took this opportunity to slip away into the shadows and explore the side of the palace. There was one part of the story she remembered, and she wondered if it still held true...

"_Boo!_" Just as Twilight was looking in the aperture again, a face popped up to meet her; it was Rainbow Dash's. The unicorn nearly leaped out of her skin.

"F- _Rainbow!_ Quit scaring me like that!" she gibbered, while Dash just giggled. "How... how did you get in there anyway?"

"There's a hole around the corner where a window used to be. It was how Spectra sneaked around the palace in the story." the pegasus smiled, resting her head on her hooves in the hole. Twilight grumbled and started around the corner.

After the ponies had helped each other through the second-floor window, they descended from the balcony and entered into the main hall. With the torch, the two unicorns had no need to keep their horns lit. There were stone and marble panels scattered and broken all over the floor; bits of masonry and metalwork lay cracked from disrepair, and dirt and ash lay strewn around. The rusted remains of a suit of armour, designed for something bipedal, lay along the middle of the room, just before the altar. At the back of the hall, there was a recess carved into the wall that looked like it was not part of the original construction, and inside it was a heavy wooden door, that looked much more recent than the room around it. It didn't budge when it was pushed; a _chink_ indicated a lock on the other side.

"That's where the torch came from... we might not have much time." Twilight mused. The others poked around the room curiously, turning things over and inspecting some of the debris. The artifacts varied from familiar to alien; the architecture of the hall was typical of the old Canterlot style, seen in some parts of the modern palace, but many of the objects looked completely unusable with hooves. Either Canterlot was populated entirely by unicorns in the past, or they weren't designed for the modern pony form.

"Well, ah can't say it don't all point to somethin' fishy." Applejack sighed. "Ya wanna hurry up and do that spell thingamajigger?"

"Right... just neyAHhh!" Twilight shied away from something on the ground. She had just stopped herself from stepping on something rather sharp - a blade sticking out of the rubble. Intrigued, she kicked a stone or two off of it, and levitated a large sword from the debris. It was nearly a full pony length, with an ornate, engraved handle. There were a few spots of rust and plenty of scratches on the blade, and part of it was slightly discoloured, like it had been tempered by flame some time after it was forged - this sword was quite old. She twirled the floating weapon before her, inspecting not just its appearance, but also its weight and feel, culminating in a little slash at the air. She didn't know how, but she knew this was the one. "Rarity!" she called, turning to the other unicorn. "Think you can make another sling?" She carefully brought the sword over to her, waiting for her to take a hold of it. Rarity took the blade and surveyed it at length.

"Hmm... I'll need some materials besides the usual hemp, but it shouldn't be a bother."

"Maybe..." Rainbow butted in, and pulled something else from the rubble with her teeth; a long, ornate metal sheath. "... this can help?" Rarity raised an eyebrow and picked it up. Once the gravel had been emptied from the scabbard, the sword slotted in perfectly.

"That is interesting... it's a touch heavy, but I can probably fashion some straps for it. Why, are you thinking of bringing this thing home?" She looked back, a hint of doubt to her tone. Twilight just smirked.

"Eeyup." She found herself a good position in the centre of the hall, took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and slowly began to bathe the room in her horn's glow.


	16. Flashback

The structure of the Window to the Past is relatively simple; the caster focuses on an object - termed the 'anchor' - around which the spell builds a ghost image, showing the history of the object. If this anchor is say, a brick in the wall, then the ghost image will trace back the history of that individual brick, right back to the time it was fired from clay. This also means that if something accidentally gets in the way, such as a fly, then the whole spell is derailed, showing the history of the fly rather than the intended target. The sensitivity of the anchor-finding part of the spell depends on the talent of the caster. A mage of Twilight's calibre would be able to safely ignore most airborne debris, and maybe even target the contents of packages without opening them; unicorns without much magical training might be able to attempt the spell, only to anchor to the air itself. Maintaining the image is not difficult, but rewinding it is. The further back the caster attempts to see, the more physically draining the spell is, and the fuzzier the image becomes.

Twilight had chosen her position, based on careful study of the story's account, to minimise the size of the image she needed to create. Tail flat against the altar, front and centre. Everypony else stayed well clear, just watching as the faint lilac glow of Twilight's ethereal grip spread along the ground from where she stood to a radius of about five lengths, and up the same distance in the air, forming a hazy bubble. The surface of it flashed white for an instant, and from the outside it looked like the whole thing had disappeared. Twilight remained still and contemplative.

"Did... did it work? I don't see anythin'..." Applejack craned her neck forward trying to pick out the membrane that was there a moment ago. Rainbow Dash slumped to her haunches.

"_Pfft_... it's a dud."

"Oh really?" Twilight interrupted. She stepped to the side, and in her place, there stood what appeared to be a copy of herself, frozen in time at the moment of the flash. "I haven't wound back yet. This is just the ghost image of when I cast the spell."

"Is it... is it safe?" Fluttershy poked her head around from behind Rarity. The flash had startled her into taking cover.

"It's perfectly safe! Like I said, this is just a ghost image. You pass right through it..." Twilight waved a hoof through her own phantom's head. "... see?" At her reassurance, the others reluctantly stepped into the circle. "Alright. This might get a little weird..." She resumed her wide-legged stance and returned into her near-trance, her horn lighting up again. This light appeared to have no effect on the floor, or the ghost copy of Twilight - both components of the ghost image. Slowly, the image began to move. The ghost Twilight resumed a casual stance, turned, and trotted backwards across the hall. Images of Applejack and Pinkie Pie entered the range of the spell, startling their real counterparts. To make things even stranger, the image of Applejack was cut off at the edge of the spell's range. She wasn't keen to see if the spell's cross-section of her torso was anatomically accurate. After just a couple of seconds, with the rate of the ghosts' odd, reverse movement increasing, the familiar figures left the frame. The only indication that the image was still in rewind was the flickering of the light from the torch's flame.

Twilight grimaced and hunkered down. This was going to be a long and gruelling spell - the target was over a thousand years back, and the image was only looking at an hour ago. With a gulp and a little bead of sweat, she pressed on. A slate-blue blur entered the frame, and disappeared with the torch. This accentuated the odd lighting effect caused by phantom images occupying the same space as real objects; the ponies remained lit by the torchlight, standing on pitch black cobblestone. Outside the area of the spell's effect, room remained normally lit. As the rate of rewind accelerated, the light returned and left again at increasingly brief intervals. Fluttershy took cover under Rainbow Dash, hiding her eyes from the rapidly flashing floor. Pinkie Pie glazed over a little, staring at the bizarre effect. This only lasted about half a minute or so; quite suddenly, the flashing stopped, and the floor went dark. The ponies were still lit up by the torch across the hall, creating an odd-looking contrast to the pitch-black floor. The only indication that the rewind was still in progress was Twilight's visible strain: sparks of etheral energy leaped from the tip of her horn every few seconds, and beads of sweat ran down her face. She had carefully calculated the rate and duration of rewind for the spell, but with all her concentration on the spell, she was reliant on her friends to give her a signal to stop. For ten agonising minutes, Twilight struggled, and occasionally grunted or groaned, while everypony else watched the darkness anxiously.

Suddenly, light burst out. Because of the rate of rewind, the light was flashing even more rapidly than before, day and night cycling by at a terrifying pace. The sudden change elicited squeaks and squeals of surprise from everypony, which, in turn, alerted Twilight to the situation. As her focus was drawn from the spell, the rewind ground to a halt, the disorientating flashing slowing over a few seconds to a constant light level. Twilight opened her eyes and looked up, relaxing her stance a little. The stones on the ground were lit by a phantom daylight, the brightness contrasting sharply with the half-light outside the spell's range. It took her a moment to notice that she was panting and dripping sweat, and her horn was steaming gently.

"Twilight, are you okay?" Rainbow ducked her head down to look at her face. Twilight struggled to respond.

"I'm... _ahh..._ I'm fine." She puffed. She looked around at the brightly lit stones. There was nothing else of particular interest present; all this revealed was the fact that the roof was open at this point. "I need to go further." she gibbered, preparing for another burst.

"Ya sure you can handle it?" Applejack tilted her head in concern. Twilight looked up, visibly exhausted, but still no less determined.

"It's not like we have a choice." she snapped, and ducked her head down, her horn's glow reigniting into a full-on shine. Gradually, the floor resumed its cycle of light and darkness, though at a far less dizzying pace; this was reflected by Twilight's noticeably less pained expression. Not a full minute had passed when the bare stone floor changed to marble tiling and scarlet carpet, and multiple white and gold blurs rushed around the room, neatly appearing at one side of the circular area and disappearing at another. Pinkie Pie tried to keep up with one, only to twirl around and fall over. Applejack gave Twilight a shove to pull her from her trance. The blurs disappeared, and the image froze on a night-time picture of the altar in its heyday. The floor was faintly lit with a pattern of colours, like moonlight through a stained glass window, and a candle on the altar itself. Rarity walked around the side of the altar to get a look at some of the papers spread around on it, only to snub her nose on an invisible wall.

"What the..."

"That's..." Twilight panted. "...the wall of dirt. The image... the image hides it, but it's still there." she grimaced, rubbing her head a little. Rarity huffed and let the papers on the altar alone. "This looks like the palace when it was still in use. That means, we need to go forward..." she closed her eyes, horn lighting up again like a fluorescent lamp, and the image began to wind forward, much slower this time. "... slowly... slowly..." Night passed to day, and to night again, each cycle lasting a full twenty seconds. The blurs returned, still zipping around madly. From time to time, one would stand behind the altar for a brief moment, before dashing off again. It was still too blurred to discern any details about it, beyond its approximate shape and its white colour. About six minutes of cycling later, the soft colours that lit up the floor each daytime were replaced with plain daylight. Rarity appeared to be the only one who noticed this detail; it changed in the blink of an eye. Two more minutes passed, and the texture of the red carpet changed from silky smooth to roughshod, again, rather suddenly. This was enough to prompt Rarity to stir Twilight this time. She was looking progressively worse with each wind.

"Nearly there, darling." Rarity wore the most earnest smile she could, and pointed a hoof at a large impact in the floor, where the carpet was ripped and the tile split, revealing the cobblestone below. "Maybe wind it back a little?" After a moment's hesitation, Twilight wheezed and nodded, and resumed her exertion. The shadows in the image began to move, the traces of clouds racing along, while the shadow of the altar crept along at a snail's pace. Before long - maybe a minute and a half - a new, less natural light appeared, as if coming from the middle of the hall. Over the next few seconds, the light intensified, licks of orange and pink visible on the floor, culminating in a sharp, white flash, enough to startle Twilight, freezing the image just afterwards. With her head pounding and her legs shaking, she struggled to keep the image clear. Applejack put a comforting hoof over her shoulders, being careful not to put too much weight on her.

"Yer doin' great, sugarcube! Now just hang in there..." The earth pony's concerned look was met with a weak nod, Twilight's tortured body straining to stay upright.

This image was definitely not like the others. Tall shadows punctuated the light on the floor, and when followed to their origin, revealed tall figures. The invisible dirt wall made them difficult to inspect up close; they all stood neatly about a foot behind it. However, details weren't quite as important as the bigger picture - everypony (bar Twilight) boggled at the five silhouettes before them in almost reverent silence. "Well..." Applejack gulped. "... I guess that seals the deal, don't it?" Reluctantly, the five ponies approached the dirt wall, getting as close as they could to the shadow casters as they could. The figures stood just over a length tall, two legs supporting their bodies, and two other leg-like limbs sprouting from the sides of their shoulders - to a regular pony, it looked dislocated. A few features betrayed their forms as equine - the shapes of ears, of faces, the mane and tail, the way the bottom legs ended in hooves - but many things just seemed weird about their proportions. The heads looked about right, even if their necks seemed a bit short, but the bodies were much more slender in form, like a normal pony's torso flattened a little. The bottom legs seemed to sit naturally at this weird, vertical angle, and were significantly longer than it looked like they needed to be. And most of all, at the ends of the top legs were these bizarre body structures: flat planes of flesh with what looked like five small legs sticking out of each. They appeared to be prehensile, too; three of the figures were holding stick-like objects with them - an axe, a staff and a spear. _Bony spiders..._

Rainbow Dash fluttered up to one of the figures. It was airborne, just behind the rest, holding a spear in its... _hand, that's what those things are called._ She landed for a moment and drew the spear Gilda had given her from its sling, and, carefully balancing it in her front hooves, she held it up to the ghost image for comparison. Apart from the signs of wear and tear on the real one, it was identical. Her eyes traced along the cyan arm, past the tremendous pair of wings, to the face. She'd recognise those mauve eyes, that multicoloured mane, that determined, but subtly playful expression anywhere.

It took Fluttershy a moment or two to come out from hiding behind the altar and take a closer look. Her figure of interest appeared to be landing, its magnificent pale yellow wings spread wide. Everything about her seemed to flow - the mane and tail were at least a length long each, and swept around her form, blending into the soft green robe that billowed behind her. The robe appeared to be adorned with the image of a pink and blue butterfly, stitched on at the bottom. Clutched in one hand was a knobbly wooden staff, mostly unadorned, being used as a third leg on which to hold balance as she landed.

Applejack approached the next one. One feature was calling out to her; she propped herself up on the dirt wall to get as close a look as she could to the hat sitting on her head. Wide brim, tall centre, small indent in the front of the brim. She could have sworn this pony was the previous owner of her own hat, but for one other detail - a small metal ornament in the shape of an apple, clipped to the middle of the hat. That made her smile a little. She wanted one of those.

Rarity couldn't stop squinting at the waist of the one just immediately below the one Rainbow was inspecting. There were a number of details she might have chosen to examine, but she ignored the violet mane curls and shimmering white horn to look at her belt ornament. Three blue sapphires, diagonally shaped, studded side-by-side in white enamel. It stood out so starkly from the plain black clothing she wore; but for some reason, she had chosen to display this familiar icon despite her disguise.

Pinkie Pie gazed curiously at the last figure. Two things held most of her attention: the figure's apron, and the large firework it held atop its shoulder. That thing looked _insane._ _She must be planning one heck of a party!_ She noticed that both features were adorned with the same icon - a balloon with a string. This symbol seemed to repeat around the nose cone of the rocket, alternating in colour between white and a pale blue.

As Applejack was stepping back from the wall, around the side of the altar, her legs passed through something she hadn't noticed before. A sixth figure was hunched over in the shadows in front of it. A sword - one very like the one Twilight had pulled from the rubble earlier - lay discarded on the ground. The shadow made discerning details tricky, but the light caught a few features from the top of its head that were unmistakable; the tip of a lilac horn protruding from a blanket of straight indigo hair, streaked by the horn with magenta and purple. Following the figure's line of sight, she found a seventh, right at the edge of the spell's range. Only the hooves, legs and white tail tip of this one were visible; the upper portion of its body was outside the bubble. While they reeled from their observations, an eighth figure entered the scene, unnoticed. This one was not like the others - it walked on all fours. More importantly, it _walked _- it wasn't part of the image. Before they had time to register more than a vague, blue shape, a white flash stunned them.

"Twilight..." it spoke. The unicorn jumped, startled by the unexpected voice. She looked around, still hurting from the spell; though her concentration was now broken, the image remained. Her friends stood perfectly still, some of them in improbable positions - Rainbow Dash floated in mid-air with her wings flared out, and Pinkie Pie teetered on one hoof. Everything was whited out slightly, adding to the parade of unusual lighting effects. Everything, except for the pony that now stood in front of her. Slate blue coat, pastel blue mane separated by a horn, a midnight blue ornament around her neck, adorned with a white crescent, and two impressive wings tucked into each flank. She couldn't quite believe her eyes; she blinked incredulously, not sure if this was her, or just her tired mind playing tricks on her.

"... Luna?"


	17. Breakout

"L-Luna? What..." Twilight Sparkle looked around at the frozen scene, her tired mind struggling to comprehend this revelation.

"Twilight, we haven't got much time." The alicorn leaned in closer, speaking almost in a whisper. "I wasn't expecting you to find out so quickly."

"Find... find out? You know about all this?" Twilight tilted her head. "Why did you... what..."

"I'll try and be brief. I guess you know about the Harmonious Revolt?"

"The what?"

"The..." Luna grimaced and nodded to the images of the ancestors. "That."

"Oh. Yeah, a gryphon friend of Rainbow Dash gave her a written account of the whole thing... but wh-"

"You need to find the seventh. Hornblende's reincarnation is _vital_ to banishing Celestia."

"Why do _you _want to banish Celestia?"

"Hm." Luna frowned. "The account must be incomplete. I'll try and fill in the gaps. Do you know anything about my part in this?" Twilight shook her head sternly. Luna looked over her shoulder nervously. When she resumed speaking, she was quick but clear. "Okay. Pay attention, because I don't have time to say this more than once. I'm not Celestia's sister, nor am I by nature an alicorn. During the Harmonious Revolt, I was a unicorn, and a member of the Canterlot aristocracy. After Celestia banished you, she assumed an equine form and declared herself ruler. Though she fended off the gryphons, the nobles rebelled. I, being young and greedy, was quick to sell the other nobles out to Celestia in exchange for power under her. She admired my cunning, but had no need for my knowledge. It was the aristocracy's rebellion that drove her to inflict the curse on all of ponykind. Everypony except one - me. She took the form of an alicorn and took me on as her eternal servant, and to the ponies of Equestria we presented ourselves as sisters."

"What about Nightmare Moon? The Elements of Harmony? I thought..."

"An elaborate ruse, designed to solidify her own power."

"But if she'd wiped everypony's memory, then shouldn't she be off scot-free?"

"You underestimate yourself, Twilight. The Elements of Harmony were one of the indestructible remnants of the Banished, and Celestia knew that if even one of them was used against her, she would be undone. So, making full use of my servitude to her, she made a show of banishing me to the moon, to lie in wait until the reincarnated Banished - you and your friends - could be fooled into using your Elements on me, under her control, achieving nothing and rendering them useless."

"_... what?_" Twilight gaped. It took all of her focus just to keep up with Luna's frantic exposition, let alone process all of it. Regardless, she was visibly incensed at the very idea of having been deceived.

"The only thing is, it only took care of six of the seven Elements. The seventh is still out there, naive to the whole story, and _she _holds the key to defeating Celestia and freeing ponykind!"

"But... why do _you _want to help us? You betrayed your peers to serve at Celestia's side!"

"Twilight..." Luna sighed. "A thousand years gives you a lot of time to think about your mistakes." Twilight lowered her head apologetically.

"Oh, and what's with the hurry? Haven't you stopped time or something?"

"The longer we're down here, the longer Celestia has to find this place."

"She... what?"

"Usually I come down here to get time away from her. Something about this place... when I'm here, she can't find me. But I don't know if she can detect others here, so you need to leave at once. I started this time bubble to tell you what I know, and the moment it drops, I'm going to teleport you and your friends outside the city, and you all need to get out of here as fast as you can. Regroup, find the seventh, and find the way to banish Celestia from this plane in the study of haemomancy."

"But wait! I sti-" Before Twilight could protest further, Luna bowed her head, her horn drawing in light, culminating in a blinding flash, stunning Twilight momentarily. By the time the glare had dissipated from her vision, she saw, not the inside of the dank, ruined palace, but the exterior of Canterlot, from the snowy grove they had drawn their plans in earlier. She looked around to see Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie Pie, all looking around themselves, befuddled. She turned to address them, but her exhaustion caught up with her; she collapsed in the snow with a groan, catching her friends' attention anyway.

"_Twilight!_" Everypony exclaimed in unison as they crowded around her.

"We need..." she managed, still trying to struggle to her hooves. "... we need to go..." At this, her face fell in the snow, and she lost consciousness.

"Twi? _Twi!_" Applejack prodded her. When she turned her over, the sight of her chest rising and falling brought relief.

"Well you heard her, let's go!" Rainbow Dash fluttered around anxiously.

"We'll need a stretcher for Twilight before we go anywhere. Rarity, think yer can fix one up?" Applejack ordered, assuming a sort of _de facto_ leadership in Twilight's stead. Rarity looked around for a moment, as if she'd lost something.

"Yes, certainly, just as soon as I figure out what I was already making... a... _the sword!_ Where's the sword?"

"Ah don't know how it happened, but ah think..." Applejack turned back to face Canterlot. "... it's back in there."

"And Spike!" Fluttershy exclaimed, realising where she was.

"Rainbow, you know what to do!" The earth pony barked. Dash just saluted and bolted for the storm drains. Rarity grimaced, and started pulling twigs from the nearby trees.

* * *

><p>"Darn drains, why do they have to be so dark?" Rainbow's usual lightning pace was slowed to a crawl as she entered the exit chute. With the ladder removed, the only indication she had to fly up was a firm collision with the back wall of the pipe. She knew that Spike would be directly above the exit pipe, and without ground-bound companions, she could fly straight up, saving time. Luck was also on her side - Spike's floating light was visible from the drain's central hall, giving her a beacon.<p>

"Hrmnmnmnm... escort you to the Gala, Rarity? Of course..." she heard as she parked inside the inflow pipe. Spike was sleeping sweetly on the edge of the hole. Remembering Twilight's warning about the sewer gas, she decided to pass Spike by and pick him up on the way back. However, another property of the sewer made itself apparent as soon as she punched the cover off - without a unicorn companion, it was pitch-black. _There's no way I'll find the palace through that..._ she retreated down the ladder and thought for a moment. _I'll need some kind of light, like Spike's... wait, that's it!_ She scooped Spike up in her forehooves and shook him roughly. She had no time for Fluttershy's finesse. "_Uah!_ What? What's going on?" Spike looked around frantically. Dash just stared at him through narrowed eyes and uttered a simple instruction;

"_Don't. Sneeze._" Before Spike could protest, she plopped him on to the back of her neck and hurried back up the ladder. Using a mixture of memory and dead reckoning, she followed the path she had taken earlier. Spike held his breath and clung to the speeding pegasus for dear life. The palace wasn't quite as distinctive as before without Twilight to light the way, but it still emitted the faintest trace of torchlight. She went straight for the side of the building and ducked in through the window, the discovery still fairly fresh in her mind.

She skidded to a halt inside, her hooves kicking up a cloud of dust. Luna lay at the far side of the hall, kneeling on her legs, a book in front of her. The ruckus had drawn her attention, and the two ponies stared each other down. Oblivious to Luna's conversation with Twilight, Dash reared up, ready to charge at the slightest provocation. Spike looked on, looking a little queasy. Luna picked something from the ground and tossed it to Rainbow. The pegasus prepared to dodge, but instead the object slid across the floor, stopping a length in front of her.

"You forgot this." Luna added calmly. It was the sword in its sheath, with a hempen sling attached to it. Reluctantly, Dash picked it up, and, with Spike's help, strapped it on. It was awkward wearing it with the spear - the two jostled for space, and the sword was quite heavy to boot. "Now _go!_" Still eyeing her cautiously, Dash took off out the window. Spike's light was beginning to fade - the light she had to navigate with was noticeably dimmer than when she entered the palace. She followed her previous route as best she could, racking her brain for landmarks, anything that might signal the right turn. The diminishing light was bad enough, but the added weight of the sword slowed her down, throwing off her sense of distance travelled. With her held breath rapidly depleting, she took a chance on the current nearest side street.

A near collision with a wall indicated quite quickly that this was the wrong one. She backed around and tried the next one. It was quite long, possibly long enough... she felt a yank at the back of her head. When she stopped and looked around, she saw Spike - nearly blue in the face - pointing at the ground. _An open ponyhole cover! Spike, I could kiss you right now!_ She banked around and dove, hind-hooves first, for the hole, not even thinking to replace the cover first. As soon as she was safely down the ladder, both her and her rider gasped. The air wasn't particularly fresh - sewer gas had seeped into the drain while they were away - but it was an improvement. Wasting no time, Rainbow dove for the hole, Spike desperately clinging to her mane. With the light all but gone, this wasn't so much controlled flight as a leap of faith. If she had remembered the geometry of the room correctly, and the speed and angle of her leap was just right, they would be fine. If not, then it was an ice bath for both of them. Spike screamed as they descended into the darkness. After a second of free fall, Dash joined in. She closed her eyes and braced for impact.

_Thud._

She felt something smooth and cold impact her belly, and felt a high velocity change in direction, in the shape of a smooth curve. However, she wasn't airborne. It took her a moment to realise that she was sliding along the exit pipe's ice sheet. _Perfect!_ She kicked off the ice to take to the air again, just in time to avoid her belly scraping along the bare streak Twilight had left. Both fliers still shouting at the top of their lungs, they shot from the opening and into the night at a dizzying speed.

With a _thwump_, Dash landed in the snow by the others, grinning triumphantly. Spike rolled off her back and planted his face in the snow. Pinkie Pie pranced around behind her, cheering and waving around what appeared to be pom-poms. Applejack just rolled her eyes.

"Always with the theatrics..."


	18. Elementary, Dear Trotson

"Applebloom?"

"Yeah, Sweetie Belle?"

"Can you sleep?"

"Nuh-uh..."

"Me neither!"

"You too, Scootaloo?" Applebloom crawled out of bed and over to the window. The Cutie Mark Crusaders had given up their crusade for the evening and returned to Sweet Apple Acres for rest. However, the troubling revelations of that book Sweetie Belle had found were still playing through their minds. They weren't quite sure what to make of it, and they didn't even fully understand it yet, but when Sweetie Belle accidentally lapsed into calling the characters by the names of her big sister and her friends, and it _still made sense_, something struck deep with the little fillies. The young earth pony sighed and pouted, looking out the window. _Dang ol' story... ah shouldn't let it get to me. S'probably nothin'. After all, ah still got to find big sis... hey, wait a sec..._ "Ah got it!"

"Got what?" Scootaloo sat up in the bed. Sweetie Belle rubbed her eyes and did the same.

"Ah think ah know where Applejack 'n Rarity 'n Rainbow Dash 'n all them went!"

"You do?" Scootaloo bounced out of bed excitedly. Sweetie Belle squeaked, pushed out the other side.

"What if they read the story and then went to Canterlot to beat up Princess Celestia or somethin'?"

"Of course!"

"We need to get on it right a..." Sweetie Belle added, sitting up from behind the bed. Her sentence was interrupted by a yawn. "... right away."

"Yeah..." Applebloom crawled back up to the bed. "... just lemme git another coupl'a minutes o' sleep..."

* * *

><p>Applejack ended up pulling Twilight's stretcher. Rainbow Dash was going to do it, but she found herself quickly succumbing to exhaustion too; the adrenaline was wearing off from the infiltration. Nevertheless, the tired ponies soldiered on, marching south through the night. As determined as they were, the return journey took two more hours than expected. By the time they reached Fluttershy's cottage, all of them weary, frostbitten and hungry, it was three o'clock in the morning. Applejack and Rainbow Dash passed out on the carpet, not even bothering to remove their respective payloads. Everypony else took a moment to find somewhere comfortable to curl up, but regardless, all were sleeping soundly within minutes of arriving.<p>

The next morning, Fluttershy awoke to Angel's gentle prodding. Or, she felt it as gentle prodding, he was in fact trying his best at firm shoving.

"Wh... what is it, Angel?" She asked, blinking groggily. The rabbit held up a pocket watch and bounced up and down a little. "... you're late?" Angel whacked himself on the forehead with the watch, and held out the face of it again, pointing at it. "What's the time? The time!" She squinted at the clock, and then gasped. _1pm!_ She staggered to her hooves and hurried into the next room. "Oh my... oh my!"

* * *

><p>She was able to rouse most of her friends in short order. After a good night's rest, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed; Applejack and Rainbow Dash were still hurting, but awake nonetheless. Twilight, however, was still out cold. Munching on whatever flowers were left around the house and the remnants of the apples they brought on their trip, they discussed plans over breakfast.<p>

"Okay, there's no point beating about the bush here. What now?" Rarity started.

"We ain't goin' nowhere 'til Twilight wakes up. An' who knows how long that could be..." Applejack shot a concerned look over to the stretcher.

"But we gotta do _something!_" Rainbow Dash added. "We can't just sit around while... while..."

"While what?" Rarity tilted her head.

"While... I dunno. I thought we were in a hurry, but I never knew why."

"Well, that's the thing. Ah been thinkin'..." Applejack frowned a little. "So we know this whole story thing is true. But do we really _need_ to do anythin' about it? Ah mean, sure, there was all them horrible things that happened in the past, but that was the past. Life right now is... well, life is good. It ain't broke, do we really need to fix it?" She looked back around the room. The point struck chords with Rarity and Fluttershy, and putting them deep in thought. Pinkie Pie was just deep in a sandwich. Rainbow Dash, however, was fuming.

"'Do we really need to fix it'? _Do we really need to fix it!_" She started pacing frustratedly. "Of _course_ we need to fix it!"

"Rainbow, will you just think for two seconds? We can't just go around banishin' demons for the heck of it. This is a mighty big issue! We might know the whole story, but there's a whole nation o' ponies out there who don't, and can't know until it's too late. If we keep going down this road, then mah life, our lives, everypony's lives are gonna change forever..."

"_Forever!_" Pinkie Pie popped her head down from the ceiling.

"... and that's somethin' ah don't think we should take lightly."

"I never said I wasn't taking this seriously!" Rainbow protested.

"She's got a point though, it's not like anypony's been left wanting as it is..." Rarity chipped in.

"But..."

"Rainbow, all ah'm sayin' is that we need to give this some thought first. We got a pretty good life right here, and ah don't know if I'm as ready as you are to throw it away." Applejack looked sternly over to the pegasus. Dash returned her gaze.

"I think _you_ should think about how this 'pretty good life' is a _lie_." Dash didn't take her eyes off Applejack for a second. Applejack had initially returned the gaze, but soon found the fire draining from her side of the argument, reflected in her increasingly crestfallen expression. "I thought the element of honesty would see that from the start." They kept their eyes locked for another few tense seconds, before Applejack broke off and sighed. Dash sat back down, her point made.

"Ah guess ya got me there... but we still can't rush it. For starters, we don't even know what 'it' is."

"Well, why don't we try some of that 'deductive reasoning' thing, then? The thing that Twilight's always going on about?" Rarity smirked. Applejack stuck out her tongue to the unicorn.

"Whaddaya mean?" Rainbow tilted her head.

"You know! Looking at the information available to us and trying to figure out something from that, since Twilight's not really in a state to that for us right now. Like... ah! Take, for example, those old weapons you keep picking up. What do we know about them?"

"Well..." Dash pulled over the sling with the spear, and began to inspect it. "I know Gilda gave it to me, and... and it looks like Spectra's spear. A _lot_ like it."

"Say..." Applejack fumbled with the other sling for a moment or two, before managing to pull out the sword. "There was another one o' these in the palace, Dawn had it."

"Now the ideas are flowing!" Rarity chuckled. "What else do we know?"

"That..."

"Uhm..." Applejack and Rainbow Dash looked at each other.

"That the weapons were one of the things left behind when they... uhm... we... were banished?" Fluttershy added.

"Correct! So putting two and two together?"

"That means these are the exact same ones they had!" Rainbow blurted out.

"... And we gotta find the rest of 'em?" Applejack ventured.

"_Bingo!_ Or at least, I think they might be significant, I'm clutching at straws here. But, if all else fails, it'll at least give us something to work to. What else?"

"Hmm..." Rainbow pressed her hoof to her chin, thinking. "If the ponies in the story are really us... then that means I'm the only pony _ever_ to do the sonic rainboom!" She bounced a little, grinning giddily. Rarity quirked a brow.

"Good for you, darling. What else that's _significant?_"

"Ah just thought o' somethin'... if these things are over a thousand years old, then how come the wood in this spear ain't rotted away?" Applejack asked, taking a mouthful of hay.

"That's..." Rarity levitated the spear in front of her to get a closer look. "... a good question."

* * *

><p>Fluttershy had slipped out of the cottage to get some fresh air. Being a pegasus, she didn't mind the cold, even if the icy conditions exacerbated her weak flying - in winter, with all the water locked up in snow, it wasn't unusual for her to be ground-bound. It was getting a bit loud back at her house - Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Applejack's increasingly heated discussion was going nowhere fast, and Pinkie seemed content to prance about without a care in the world. She felt that at least out here she could think, and process some of the last two days' revelations, or failing that, distract herself. There was bound to be a robin around she could talk to. She crossed into the edge of the forest, making sure to give the poison joke patch by the stream a wide berth. She wasn't about to let <em>that<em> incident repeat itself. With a bit of strain, she found a perch on one of the bare trees nearby, where, sure enough, a robin was tending to its nest. The branch was small and icy, but she could just about hold herself steady on it.

"Hey there little guy..." she smiled and leaned over to the nest. Its occupant looked up and chirped happily, and hopped from the nest on to her nose. She giggled, closed her eyes and flicked an ear. _That's better. None of this running around dark tunnels at night silliness..._

_Crack._

_That's not good..._ She looked over her shoulder. The robin was already flying away to safety. The frozen branch was brittle, and maybe a little too small to take a pegasus' dry-weather weight. She turned in place to get to the thicker part of the branch before...

_Crack._

Too late. The branch snapped in the middle, only a few woody fibres holding it on. There wasn't really anything she could do at this point - hooves don't have fantastic grip, especially not on ice; Rainbow Dash might have been able to kick into full flight in this cold, dry air, but Fluttershy certainly couldn't; and grabbing the branch in her teeth would have wrenched her jaw clean off with her full weight hanging from it. There were no two ways about it - she was headed for the poison joke.

_Thump._

She stood up almost immediately upon landing, shaking off the snow and petals. She didn't feel anything wrong... yet. However, she knew that it would kick in sooner or later if she just left it. Without a second thought, she took off towards Zecora's hut.

* * *

><p>"Fluttershy! What a nice surprise. Tell me, what brings you before my eyes?" The zebra smiled, answering the knocking promptly.<p>

"Oh, uhm... I was out for a walk, and... I accidentally fell in a poison joke patch. Could you... uhm... if you don't mind, uh..."

"Certainly, without delay! It would appear it's your lucky day..." Zecora backed out of the doorway to let Fluttershy in, revealing her cauldron bubbling lightly in the middle of the room. "It was not even an hour ago, that I myself had a run-in with the joke." She returned to the brew, lightly simmering over the fire. It was mostly clear, with a light froth on top; it looked like she was preparing to use the cauldron as a makeshift bathtub.

"Oh, I didn't mean to intrude or anything, uhm..."

"Do not worry about your call! You cannot always control where you fall. The bath will be a little longer brewing; tell me, how are your friends doing?" Zecora smiled warmly. The rhyming never failed to give Fluttershy the willies, but after a minute or two she usually got her head around it.

"They're... we're..." she hesitated. She wasn't sure whether to let Zecora in on their discoveries. _Maybe she already knows? She has funny ways of knowing things. She'd certainly be a good friend to have on their side, but on the other hoof..._ "... fine!" she grinned back. _Best to keep it under wraps for now._ "Yep, super." She trotted up to the cauldron and sat in front of it. She didn't desperately need to keep warm, but it was still nice.

"Happy news is always good to hear, especially in this gloomy time of year!" _Zecora, you have no idea._ Fluttershy looked around the room idly, examining some of the decorations. She'd done a good job of patching the place up after the last time everypony visited. Rarity always thought this stuff was creepy, but Fluttershy kinda liked it - it was interesting and exotic. It could be a bit intense when every wall was covered in it, but it was fun to look at. Masks, embroidery, idols, sticks... _wait a second, a stick?_ For some reason, this one stick caught her attention. It was just a straight, plain, slightly knobbly wooden stick, about a length long, hanging conspicuously on the wall. It stood out from all the gorgeously painted and crafted ornaments by virtue of its sheer austerity, and compounding this was the fact that something about it seemed familiar... "I see something has caught your eye! Pray tell what is it, Fluttershy?"

"Oh! Uh..." _She is sharp._ "That... that stick on the wall. I just..."

"Ahh, yes. There is something special about this stick, but I could never quite explain it." The zebra delicately lifted it off the wall with her teeth and laid it out on the ground between them. "The one thing I do know about this stake, is that try as you might, it will not break." She let Fluttershy take a closer look. No strikingly unusual details, nothing to back up that gut feeling, smoke coming from... _Oh no!_ She squeaked and grabbed the stick in her teeth, pulling it out of the fire and whacking the flaming end against the ground. The fire went out easily, leaving that end thoroughly charred.

"Zecora, what... why did you..."

"Look!" The zebra brushed a hoof over the blackened end. The flakes of charcoal were just wiped off, like nothing had ever happened. There weren't even teethmarks where it was bitten. "Believe me when I say I've tried, nothing known to pony will make this staff divide." She chuckled.

"Hmm... now that is something..."


	19. Wild Goose Chase

After the quick bath, Fluttershy was away again. Against her better judgement, she had decided to fill in Zecora on their findings, if only to explain why she was so taken with that one staff. The zebra was stunned by the story, but luckily, sympathetic. She didn't have any information that might be useful to them, but swore to keep their secret and aid them in any way she could.

Once outside, the pegasus noticed the position of the sun had changed. Her friends would probably have noticed her absence by now; she thanked Zecora for the staff, and the handy sling she had for it, and rushed home.

"I'm back!" She threw open the door upon her return, stumbling inside. In her haste, she tripped on the doormat and skidded across the floor. While she got up and shook herself off, she heard the door close, accompanied by a faint twinkling. The sound startled her a little, and when she looked back in front of her, she jumped again. Twilight was awake and sitting on her couch, and she caught the last moment of her horn's glow. "_Twilight!_" she grinned, bouncing over, past the others. "You're alright!"

"A little tuckered out, but fine, thanks." the unicorn smiled. Her fatigue was evident in her voice. "Now that we're all here, I can clear up some of the... ahem, confusion." She looked over to Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Rarity. All three lowered their heads, with apologetic expressions and ruffled manes. Rainbow even had a black eye. "You may have noticed that something odd happened back at the palace..."

* * *

><p>"Gee, it sure is a long way to Canterlot..."<p>

"You can say that again, Applebloom..." Scootaloo wheezed, weakly flapping her tired wings to propel the scooter along. The Cutie Mark Crusaders had been travelling for what felt like _forever_... at _least_ an hour! Maybe even _two_ hours! They had initially been making good time, travelling a little faster by scooter than the average pony's walking speed, even with two passengers. However, the pace was exhausting on the little pegasus, and soon they just had to stop and rest.

"Look! There's a town! Maybe we can rest there!" Sweetie Belle called, pointing a hoof at the top of the next hill, where a cluster of dark, wooden buildings protruded from the blanket of snow on the meadows around them. Scootaloo groaned and soldiered on, beating her tiny wings furiously.

"Could you at _least _get out and walk for a while?"

* * *

><p>"... and that's everything we know so far." Twilight concluded. Everypony else just gawped, processing the veritable trove of information she had acquired through Luna. "Well don't look so shocked, I think it clears up a lot of holes in my theory. Plus, now we know what we should do next!"<p>

"Find the seventh..." Rarity began, a little uneasily.

"... and find the way to banish Celestia from this plane in the study of... heemy... haemomancery? What's that?" Applejack continued.

"Haemomancy. Blood magic." Twilight stated calmly. Everypony else gasped at the mention. "I know it's not pretty, but it at least makes sense. Now, one thing at a time. We need to figure out who the seventh is."

"But she could be _anypony!_" Rainbow Dash protested.

"Actually, with what we know, we have a fairly good description to go by, and because they... we... they... were all banished together, we're likely to have met her at some point in the past. From the story, we know she's a blue unicorn with a white mane, an able magician but scheming and boastful..." They all thought for a moment, constructing a mental image of the pony in question, before it all came together and hit everypony at once. Nopony was exactly thrilled at the prospect.

"Not _her..._"

"_Anypony_ but her..."

"I'm afraid it probably is... Trixie fits the bill better than anypony we know." Twilight gulped.

"Are ya sure? Can't it be somepony else? Somepony we didn't want to never see again?" Applejack groaned.

"She's never going to let us hear the end of this..." Rarity muttered.

"But we only met her once! I thought there was supposed to be some special connection or something!" Rainbow whined. Twilight sighed.

"It doesn't matter that we only met her once, she still left enough of an impression that we remembered her right away. The description is... it's too accurate. It has to be her." the unicorn admitted. "We just need to figure out where she went after she left town."

"With any luck she's all washed up..." Rarity whispered to one side, and Applejack and Rainbow couldn't help but chuckle. Pinkie Pie was already giggling anyway, but she was never one to pass up an opportunity for a laugh.

"Anyway, as for the second part, I need to track down some books on haemomancy. Since its study was outlawed even in the times before Celestia, I doubt it'll be on my library shelves. We may well need to travel outside Equestrian borders to find something."

"Lemme guess." Dash grimaced. "The gryphon kingdoms?"

"Actually, I was thinking of something much closer to home. This might just be my own curiosity getting the better of me, but I think it might be worth exploring the ancient royal castle in the Everfree forest again. The last time we were there, I thought it looked like it much older than a thousand years, but I didn't have time to check it out properly. Now that we know it wasn't really the former home of Celestia and Luna, it makes sense that it was never part of Equestria, so it should at least have a clue, and if we're lucky it might even have what we need."

"Ya sure? We're kinda shootin' in the dark here..." Applejack remarked.

"It's a start at least. We have gone out on shakier logic before, _and _been right, remember? Now, since we have two tasks, we'll split into two teams. Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, you're with me. As soon as we're ready, we're going into the Everfree forest. With just three of us, including two pegasi, we should be able to make the castle within an hour, and Fluttershy, you should be able to deal with any hostile animals we encounter." Twilight looked over to the timid pegasus. She whimpered a little, but nodded in acknowledgement. "Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie Pie, you stick around Ponyville and see if you can find a lead on Trixie. Being natives, you'll know where to luck better than the rest of us. If you're lucky, you might find your artifacts while you're at it."

"Artifacts?" Rarity tilted her head.

"These things." Twilight levitated her sword, Rainbow's spear and Fluttershy's staff in front of her. "I don't know what they're for yet, but they are important, so keep your eyes peeled. You're looking for.." She looked at Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie Pie in turn. "... an woodcutting axe, an ornate dagger and a rocket. You should remember what they looked like from the palace, and if you're in any doubt, remember..." Twilight drew the sword a little way from its sheath, and hovered the staff above it at cross-angles. With a sudden, loud _crack_, she brought the wooden shaft down against the blade, and rather than snapping, the staff just bounced off without so much as a dent. "... the artifacts are indestructible."

* * *

><p>Having the less strenuous task, Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie Pie set off more or less immediately. None of them were particularly enthusiastic, but they couldn't kid themselves; it needed to be done.<p>

"Now, if ah was a self-important talentless blowhard, where would ah be hiding..." Applejack muttered to herself as they reached the centre of town. Pinkie just had to giggle.

"She can't be _completely_ talentless if she's this important, Applejack." Rarity stated flatly.

"Inn't that a bit generous? Ah'm just callin' it like ah sees it." The earth pony smirked.

"Regardless, such banter isn't helping our case. Let's try actually thinking about it for a change."

"Hmm... well, she left town after the whole deal with the Ursa Minor..." Applejack rubbed her chin with a hoof.

"And, and everypony was talking about how she was a joke and how her show was a sham!" Pinkie chipped in.

"... so ah'm guessin' her act was ruined after that."

"I just hope she hasn't done something too stupid..." Rarity mused, frowning at the prospect. "We'd do well to start looking in bars to see if anypony's seen her."

"Uhm... Rarity, there ain't no bars in Ponyville." Applejack interrupted.

"What? How do you know? Dingy taverns aren't exactly my forte."

"All the cider we make down on the farm gets sent out of town, since nopony buys the stuff here. Nearest place ya can get it is Hoofington, a coupl'a hours walk north."

"That's _it!_ Hoofington!" The mention made a connection in Rarity's mind. "Trixie said she saved Hoofington from an Ursa Major. If she has any sense, the story wouldn't have been a _total _fabrication. She may well have a home there!"

"... And if she don't got any sense?"

"Well, that's a chance we're going to have to take." The unicorn sighed.

"So... what now? Ya think Twilight 'n them'll be back in the time it takes us to walk to Hoofington?" Applejack's statement was cut off by a grumble, that seemed to be coming from Pinkie's stomach.

"_I_ say we stop for lunch! All this investigating is making me hungry!" She beamed, bouncing off in the direction of Sugarcube corner - not very far away at all.

"Pinkie, we just ate half an hour ago, how can you be hungry?"

"Just go with it Rarity, there's no stoppin' her..."

* * *

><p>Pinkie Pie bounded into the shop in her usual sprightly manner, followed closely by the Applejack and Rarity, both eager to get out of the cold. Mrs. Cake was tending the till, with Mr. Cake moving some trays of muffins around behind her.<p>

"Good morning!" The party pony announced cheerily, either oblivious to the time, or just not caring.

"Pinkie, dear! Good to see you, we were so worried! Where have you been?" Mrs. Cake asked earnestly. Pinkie was more interested in bouncing upstairs to check on Gummy, so Rarity stepped forward to take the question, putting a hoof in front of Applejack. They both knew well why.

"We got caught in the blizzard the other night and had to stay with Twilight for the night, and then the following evening... let's just say time ran away with us." the unicorn smiled.

"Oh, I didn't see you two there!" Mrs. Cake perked her ears, noting Rarity and Applejack. "Your sisters were here looking for you yesterday." The two ponies looked at each other with growing worry.

"Yesterday, you say?" Rarity asked.

"Yep, the two of them and Scootaloo. They're playing at being detectives, trying to find where you went, it's adorable!"

"Adorable until they get 'emselves in trouble. C'mon, we need to find 'em!" Applejack started out the door, and Rarity didn't need to be told twice to follow.

* * *

><p>The pair skidded to a halt outside the Carousel Boutique, their first stop. With just the two of them in that household, Rarity and Sweetie Belle had an agreement with the Apple family; if Rarity didn't come home one night, because of work-related trips or if caught in a sticky situation, then Sweetie Belle was to lock up the shop, meet up with Applebloom and stay with her until Rarity turned up again. Thus, stopping at the Boutique was little more than a formality, to check that Sweetie Belle had done as instructed and locked up the building. When they came to a stop, however, there was more than that waiting for them. Another little filly with a scarlet cape was toddling around the front door. As they got closer, they could make out a horn on her head, and that she appeared to be looking through the letterbox.<p>

"Sweetie Belle?" she called.

"You're looking for Sweetie Belle?" Rarity asked, stopping just short of her. The little unicorn nearly jumped out of her skin. She looked around, revealing her face. She was a soft lilac colour, with a pale blonde mane and orange eyes. She backed up against the door, whimpering in fright. "Oh, I'm... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I'm Rarity, Sweetie Belle's sister. You are...?"

"D... Dinky Hooves..." The filly mumbled meekly.

"Oh! You must be that new friend Sweetie Belle was talking about. Good to meet you!" Rarity smiled. Dinky sighed in relief. "What has you out here all alone? I would have thought you would be with the others!"

"They went playing yesterday, but I couldn't come out and play 'cos I was sick..." Dinky kicked her front hoof idly.

"So you don't know where they are..."

"Nope, sorry, Miss Rarity..."

"Hmm... well, you should probably head home until we find them, we'll make sure to let them know you called."

"Okay! Thanks!" Dinky giggled, and galloped off, brushing past Applejack.

"Ah didn't know they went an' made a new friend! Ah swear, Applebloom tells me nothin' these days..."

"At least the Boutique is secure. Now let's go!"

* * *

><p>Ten minutes later, Applejack kicked open the front door of the farmhouse and charged inside. Rarity followed, taking a moment to ensure the door was still attached to its hinges. The frame looked like it took this kind of abuse regularly.<p>

"Applebloom! _Applebloom!_" The earth pony called. She turned to the kitchen, where her yelling had woken up Big Macintosh, who was sleeping by the fire again. "Big Macintosh, is sleepin' all you do these days?" The stallion blinked and yawned, not visibly startled by the ruckus. Since there was no ploughing or bucking to be done this time of year, he indeed spent most of his time comfortably asleep by the fire; however, all he needed to express this was a casual glance out at the snow, followed by a look back to his sister and the simple utterance:

"... Eeyup." He smirked a little, his indifference clearly driving Applejack up the wall. She sighed and returned to the more important matter.

"Ya seen Applebloom or them anywhere? The Cakes said they were lookin' for us, an' you _know_ what kinda trouble that could mean!"

"They were sleepin' over last night, but they left this mornin' on their scooter with some picnic food." The information elicited another exchange of worried glances.

"I don't suppose they called into the schoolhouse on their way out then?" Rarity chimed in.

"We'll have to find Cheerilee, but ah ain't got high hopes..."


	20. Now You're Winking With Portals

Pinkie Pie flopped on to her bed, lying on her back. _Ahh, comfy_. She'd barely had time to sit down and properly process all that had gone on in the last two days. Around her friends, she'd been trying to keep a brave face, for them as much as for herself. After all, if Pinkie wasn't laughing, something was _really_ wrong. She sighed, and her mane wilted a little as she stared up at the ceiling. _A thousand years? Mr. and Mrs. Cake weren't kidding when they said this place had a history._ Gummy floated by on a slightly deflated balloon. There were a few around the room, but no fresh ones; she hadn't been around to blow up more. She turned over and tried to distract herself with a party popper. With a few deft movements of her jaws and tongue, she picked it up and just managed to tug out the cord. With a _bang_, streamers shot into the air and rained down over the bed. As she spat out the husk, she couldn't help but make a few observations. _Who even makes stuff this way anymore? Has nopony ever figured out that something is wrong with like, ninety percent of everything?_

She shook her head, trying to dispel the thoughts. Why did the truth have to be so awkward, so upsetting? Why couldn't it all just go away? She turned over and buried her head in her pillow. _Laughter, dammit, laughter, Pinkie! Element of..._

"_... augh!_" Every thought she tried to console herself with led right back to uncomfortable territory. She turned back on to her back, just in time for a balloon to bump into her flank, upending its passenger on to her belly. She sighed and couldn't help but smile a little. "At least I have you, Gummy." The alligator just blinked vacantly. His nonplussed gaze seemed to strike some chord within Pinkie; it inexplicably brought her to a minor epiphany, by way of the incomprehensible system of Pinkie logic. "Y'know Gummy? You're _right..._" Pinkie backed up a little, lifting him gingerly between her forehooves and placing him on her head. With a careful side-flip, she vaulted out of the bed while balancing Gummy, and started towards her bedroom door. "Our friends are counting on us! _Let's go!_"

With the baby alligator on her head, she trotted down the stairs with a renewed spring in her step. She looked around the front room, which doubled as the shop. Mr. Cake was still out back, busy baking, and Mrs. Cake was dealing with a customer, so she decided not to interrupt. Applejack and Rarity, however, were gone. After the last time her friends ran off without her, she knew better than to assume the worst - something important probably came up, or they just decided to let her stuff her face with cake at her own leisure, and returned to Fluttershy's cottage to help Twilight. In any case, she wasn't going to hold it against them. In the mean time, she could do some snooping around. She was always finding stuff she didn't know was there around this place, and according to the story it was _real_ old, so she figured it probably had a few secrets left to spill - secrets she wasn't looking for until now.

Using their distraction, she darted across the room to the basement hatch and slipped inside. The Cakes barely batted an eyelid. Pinkie cautiously continued down the wooden steps. They were creaky and musty, and this old cellar was _cold._ She shivered and tried not to think about it. The half-light made it difficult to pick out details in the clutter, but her eyes slowly adjusted. It was largely barrels, boxes, lots of ingredients. No, no, this was all too recent. She nosed a couple of crates out of the way and started to dig into the older stuff, left here by Cakes of generations gone by. With customers coming and going and the kitchen firing on all cylinders, she was reasonably confident she could make a _bit_ of noise without rousing suspicion, so she began to chuck things out of the way. Empty boxes nested within each other thumped against the floor as she hauled them out, followed by the clatter of loose planks and a few tools. She winced as an old nail grazed her. It all seemed to be junk back here, and all she was doing was getting covered in dust while Gummy watched from the banister, until...

Buried under the decades of abandoned miscellany was a fairly large, slightly rotted crate, marked simply 'FIREWORKS'. The paper label was frayed and stained, and looked like it would disintegrate at a mere touch. Pinkie hooked her hooves in the top of the crate and pulled on it gingerly, sliding it a short way across the floor before the top board crumbled under the pressure. She huffed, but it was just about far enough out to take a peek inside. It largely contained much of the same junk as was around the rest of the room, with only a few actual fireworks inside. They too were greyed and corroded, and a couple had been split along their seams, their powder long since rotted to nothing. However, one of them was in particularly good condition. She blew some dust from the pile (making herself cough in the process) and pulled it free. It was particularly large, about the thickness of her head, and the colourful nose and shaft were jammed into a rough wooden tube. There wasn't any obvious place for her to pick it up, so she nosed it over to the bottom of the stairs, where rays of light from the hatch could illuminate maybe some trace of identifying detail. When it rolled over a narrow shaft of light, she jumped back and gasped. The light revealed the insignia of a familiar balloon painted across the nosecone. _Well that was quick..._

* * *

><p>The Everfree forest, even in its deepest parts, was quite bright in these conditions. Most of the trees were missing their leaves, letting light through to the forest floor, and the omnipresent snow reflected it around. Gone were the creepy shadows of the summer's night they last set hoof here together. The two pegasi were making good time, and Twilight, with a sock pulled clumsily over her horn, did her best to keep up. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy stopped at a steep hillside, waiting for the unicorn.<p>

"What are you doing with that thing on your horn anyway, Twi?" Dash chuckled, landing next to Fluttershy on the crest of the hill.

"It's..." Twilight panted as she caught up. "It's an experiment. Seeing if keeping my horn warm makes much difference to my spellcasting ability." Rainbow just raised an eyebrow. Twilight stopped for breath at the hill's edge, looking down at the hillside. It was steep enough that much of the snow had just rolled off it, revealing bare dirt and rocks, with a little grass nestled in here and there. It took a few minutes of observation and contemplation, but before they moved on, Twilight made a connection. "This place... we've been here before." She trotted up and down the ridge, examining a few things in detail; a rock, a tree, the hillface itself... "Definitely."

"Huh? When?"

"It was that night of the Summer Sun celebration, when we went after Nightmare Moon! This is the hillside that collapsed underneath us!" Twilight chuckled, satisfied with her conclusion. Fluttershy peered over the incline to look around, and Dash craned her neck to look for a few landmarks.

"Oh yeah..."

"Which _means_ we might be able to take a shortcut!" Rainbow twitched an ear to Twilight's reasoning. "The last time we were here, the collapsing hillside brought us off track, so we had to go the long way round, across the river. This time we can follow the original route I'd mapped out! Which is..." Twilight peered across the chasm at the foot of the hill, to the other side, where a similarly steep hill led up to another path on the other side. "... over there!"

"Race ya!" Dash grinned, and bolted for the other side before Twilight had any chance to respond.

"Oh my..." Fluttershy hesitated a little before weakly fluttering after her. Twilight grimaced as she watched the two pegasi sail across the canyon. It wasn't like her to be competitive, but this did give her a chance to test her theory, and a twist on a familiar spell she'd been working on. She leaped off the crest of the hill, and entered a skid down towards the edge. This wasn't the same panicked, chaotic slide she had to be rescued from last time; this was focussed and controlled. Above, Rainbow slowed up a bit to watch what she did. She figured Twilight had a trick in her saddlebag, but she kept an eye on her just in case. Fluttershy might need some help in these conditions too.

About five lengths from the edge, Twilight jumped. There was no levitation behind this, no extra force, just a regular jump, and at her speed it was enough to clear the edge and enter free-fall in the canyon. Dash halted in mid-air and banked around. _Twilight, what are you doing!_ As she descended to reach her, she didn't hear screaming, she didn't see her legs flailing; just a unicorn with an apparent death wish. She steeled herself, accelerating faster by the second... Barely a length before reaching her, and only four or five lengths off the ground, a flash of light stunned the pegasus. She pulled up to stop herself, but in the cold, dry air, she was still headed for a snow bath. She pulled her head from the snow and looked around. She stood up and beat her wings once. Nothing felt broken, but something still confused her. _Where did Twilight go?_

Up above, Fluttershy watched the whole scene helplessly, barely keeping herself airborne. From her vantage point, she could see another flash, between the two cliff tops, and a lilac blur shooting from it, up the hill on the opposite side. It arced across the hill face, coming neatly to a stop in the snow at the top with a thud. Now stationary, she could make the lilac form out to be... Twilight?

The unicorn pulled her head from the snow and replaced the sock, pulled off in the rough landing. She quickly looked around herself to get a bearing on her new position. When it became clear to her, she grinned and hopped to her hooves.

"It worked! _It worked!_" She giggled and bounced excitedly, still brimming with adrenaline. It wasn't often she got to do something exciting like that. Fluttershy wheezed and glided in to land next to her, slipping a little on the crest of the hill.

"What... what worked?" the pegasus panted. Rainbow Dash came into view behind them, zipping into the air above the canyon. Her jaw dropped as soon as she noticed Twilight standing on the far hill, perfectly okay. The unicorn chuckled and went straight into an explanation, rather than gloating in her success.

"That was a little variation on winking out I've been working on. Winking out conserves momentum, and normally it conserves directionality too, so when I wink in, I'd still be facing the same way. What I'd figured out, and just managed to test, was uncoupling directionality from momentum, so with a little extra focus, I turned through about a hundred and fifty degrees, and when I winked in, I was catapulted up the hill with the momentum from falling."

"Uhh..." Dash tilted her head, struggling to comprehend the jargon - to her, motion vectors were something more easily visualised than described. Fluttershy was also bamboozled, but not quite as visibly. Twilight sighed and rephrased.

"Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out, normally facing the same way, but I figured out how to flip it around." she explained. The pegasi nodded slowly. "And _that_ is why I needed to keep my horn warm." She smiled and tapped the sock.

"Okay, just... warn us next time, okay Twilight?" Rainbow swooped in behind the two ponies on the ground. _I would have if you hadn't run off like that_, Twilight thought, keeping it to herself rather than starting an argument.

* * *

><p>The original route was indeed much shorter, and they reached the ruined castle within fifteen minutes. The dark stone walls stood out prominently from the white snow blanketing the forest floor. Bare trees lined the path to the entrance, and the steps, while slippery, paved the way to the front door.<p>

"This place is _huge_, Twilight... I never saw how big was in the dark!" Rainbow Dash gawped at the complex. Stone towers wrapped in vines dotted the skyline, and the castle sprawled out before them, keeps and courtyards joined together by arches, tunnels and terraces, some of them still in one piece, but most of them collapsed on themselves to some degree.

"Exactly! There's no way we could have seen it all in the ten minutes we were here last time, so somewhere in those ruins, there's got to be something that can help us!"

"It might not be dark, but it's still... _creepy..._" Fluttershy gulped.


	21. Crying Out For An Answer

"Cheerilee! Y'in there? _Cheerilee!_" Applejack thumped her hoof on the door of the schoolhouse that doubled as Cheerilee's home. Some muffled responses emanated from inside, before a purple earth pony answered the door. Her mane was quite ruffled, and she had bags under her eyes. She blinked a little, her eyes taking a moment to focus in the daylight.

"Hm? Oh, Applejack, Rarity. Is this about Scootaloo?" Cheerliee mumbled blearily. Rarity peeked out from behind Applejack.

"I think that can wait just a second. Darling, you look simply atrocious, is everything alright?" She tilted her head and frowned, leaning forward in concern.

"Oh, this?" The schoolteacher chuckled. "Berry was around last night. So ah, fun night..." her sentence was interrupted with a groan from inside, and her smile slid from her face. "... not so fun morning. So what's Scoots gone and done now?"

"So... they're not here?" Applejack went wide-eyed.

"... no, Scootaloo's been out since yesterday with Applebloom and Sweetie Belle, which is why sis took the opportunity to crash here... why do you ask?" Cheerilee grew visibly concerned, more so by the second.

"We can't find any of them. Nopony's seen them since yesterday!"

"_Augh_, I thought she was _done_ running away..." Cheerilee muttered under her breath. "This is bad. If the three of them are working together, they could be putting some serious distance behind themselves." Applejack gulped and kicked her heels, nodding.

"How has she been, anyways?" She asked.

"She's..." The teacher sighed. "... doing better. Having the Cutie Mark Crusaders to play with and Rainbow Dash to look up to is helping her come out of her shell, and she's definitely trying to make the most of it."

"Still no sign of the parents?"

"Nope. I... don't think we'll ever find them." Uncomfortable quiet fell on the conversation again. Strictly speaking, neither Applejack nor Rarity were concerned with this matter, but they still felt the need to take responsibility. Some clattering was heard inside, and Cheerilee shivered, brought back to her senses. "You'd better get to it then. I'd come along and help, but..." Mid-sentence, another groan was heard from inside, followed by a thump. "... I've got a few things to take care of."

"That's fine, we can handle it." Rarity said, behind a somewhat forced smile.

* * *

><p>"Mom, I'm home!" Dinky Hooves called merrily, barging into the post office and casting her Crusader's cape in the general direction of the hat stand in the corner. She knew by the saddlebags hung on the stand that her mother had finished her rounds; this time of year, she made sure to be quick on them. From behind the counter and a few boxes, an equally joyous response came:<p>

"_Muffin!_" A pegasus pony poked her head up from behind a box. Her soft yellow mane bounced between her ears, grey like the rest of her body, settling over her amber eyes. One eye was trained firmly on her daughter, concurring with her warm smile, while the other gazed vacantly in another direction. Other ponies sometimes thought this was a little odd, maybe even scary, but Dinky just thought it was kinda silly, and thought nothing of it. She leaped excitedly over the counter, spilling a few letters, and glided over to the door to greet Dinky with a loving hug, enthusiastically reciprocated. "How... one second." She leaned her head sideways and tapped it, shaking a few postage stamps out of her mane. "How is?" She smiled, not missing a beat.

"I'm okay. But I couldn't find Applebloom, Scootaloo _or_ Sweetie Belle _anywhere_..." Dinky frowned, looking at the floor.

"Actually..." The pegasus responded. She turned and bounced back over the counter, knocking one of the boxes off and throwing more letters everywhere. Dinky tilted her head while her mother rifled through the packages and files that made up the mess on the post office's desk. After a few minutes of frantic searching, she disappeared under the counter entirely. Dinky shut the door behind her, only to be startled as soon as she turned her back. "They were here earlier!" She looked back around, and her mother held a letter in her mouth, along with several stuck in her mane and one folded in her ear. Most importantly, the letter held between her teeth was addressed simply, 'Dinky', scribbled in crayon.

"_Oh boy!_" Dinky bounced excitedly. Putting her fledgling magical abilities to work, she groaned and heaved as the faintest little glow opened the envelope. She pulled out the letter itself with her teeth, and unfolded it on the ground. Her mother turned her back, letting Dinky read her letter in private. Nopony likes it when you read their mail, after all.

_Dear Dinky,_

_We're REALLY sorry you cudn't come play with us __ yesterday. Being sick is no fun! We left you this note so you coud find us when you get better. Wer going on an advenchur to Canterlot to find Applejack and Rarity and Rainbow Dash cos we cant find them anywhere and we think their there! If your quick you can cac... catch us before we get too far. See ya soon!_

_Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle_

The little unicorn's eyes lit up. She neatly folded the letter up and stuffed it back into the envelope, and rushed over to the hat stand to retrieve her cape. "I know where they are!"

"That's great, muffin!" Her mother smiled, turning back around, just in time to watch Dinky open the door again to leave. "Just try not to be out too late, okay?"

"Okay mom!" With barely another word, she took off into the snow.

* * *

><p>Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy made sure to stick close together as they explored the ruins. The crumbling masonry was quite unstable in places, and where the roof was open, the ice on the floor was particularly treacherous. Twilight kept her hoof-warming spell running when she could, and the two pegasi kept to the air when possible; however, in the dry, icy conditions, both were quite draining, and before long they opted to just be careful, and save their energy for the journey home.<p>

The castle was a sprawling network of corridors and ramparts, the product of centuries of unplanned construction. The mish-mash of building techniques and architectural styles, some of them completely unknown to Equestrian historians, made identifying who really built the castle and when nigh-on impossible. Twilight had to be reminded on numerous occasions to follow their original objective and not attempt to sate her curiosity on an unusual statue eroded to a smooth lump, or a pillar knocked across the hallway by some violent incident.

The condition of the buildings gradually got better as they entered the deeper parts of the complex, where the ruins were more sheltered from the elements than they would be on the outside. In a few places, there were even remnants of wooden planks, or shreds of parchment.

"Twilight, if this is the library you're looking for..." Dash picked up a flaky scrap of paper in her teeth, most of the writing on it faded to illegibility, and it crumbled to dust on the way up from the ground. "... I think this might be a wasted trip."

"No, no, there's got to be _something_..." The unicorn huffed and turned through a doorway to the left. The corridor ahead was blocked by boulders, so the doorway was the only way to proceed. "_Ugh!_" The room was a dead end.

"Give it up, Twilight, we've been trawling these dusty old tunnels for an hour now. There's nothing here." Dash whinged, following her into the room. Tall archways held the roof aloft, and pillars lined the walls. All of the windows on one side were buried in soil, a few of them cracked, and the floor was strewn with rubble and dirt. "I can be ready to fly north in..." Dash beat her wings once, testing how they felt. "... tomorrow." Twilight just grumbled and started another meticulous sweep of the room. Rainbow sighed and leaned against the doorway.

Fluttershy trotted in sheepishly behind the other two ponies. Dash was completely uninterested, and Twilight was too absorbed in her search to make conversation with. She thought for a moment, and sauntered up to the back of the room, opposite the door. Twilight's thorough search would take at least ten minutes to get this far, so she decided to investigate this herself. There were a series of geometric markings on the door, most of them too ornate to make any sense of, but the general flow gave the impression of lines radiating from the centre. In the very middle was a small hole, about neck height, with some plant detritus inside. She pulled it out with her hoof to get a look inside - the hole was conical, with spiralling grooves, almost like an inverted horn. Maybe...

"Twilight, I think you'd better look at this..."

"Fluttershy, I'm _trying _to concentrate!" The unicorn barked back. _Ouch... I don't like your tone, Twilight. I know this is a little dishonest, but if it's the only way you'll calm down and pay attention..._ Gingerly, Fluttershy lowered her head and sniffed loudly. She closed her eyes tightly, making them tear up a little, and whimpered, pulling her mouth into a deep frown.

"Ugh, now look what you've done, Twilight..." Rainbow Dash groaned, and walked over to the apparently crying pegasus.

"What?" The unicorn looked up, taking a moment to notice Fluttershy's expression. "Oh, for the love of..." She sighed and turned to follow Dash. "Listen, Fluttershy, I'm sorry... I didn't mean to snap. I guess I'm just getting a bit carried away with this..." She looked genuinely crestfallen, and Fluttershy nodded weakly in acknowledgement. She sniffled again, drying her eyes, but still hanging her head meekly. "Dash, you might be right. We should probably just go..." Twilight sighed.

"Actually, I... I thought this might be somethhm..." Fluttershy trailed off, gazing at the floor and pointing a hoof behind her at the wall. Twilight perked up again, her curiosity piqued. _Mission successful. _The unicorn gazed intently at the markings, first trying to decipher any intrinsic meaning to them, before the general trend dawned on her, leading her to inspect the hole in the centre. Reaching the same conclusion Fluttershy did, she lowered her head to point her horn to the cavity.

"Not sure what this is going to do, but here goes..." Twilight took a deep breath and pushed her head forward, jamming her horn inside. The cold stone lit up in red, recognising an arcane signature in the hole. Unfortunately for her, it also burned red hot, delivering an intense jolt of searing pain to her horn.

The horn is like a tooth, in that it has no nerve endings in the hard outer shell; usually, for pain to be felt, the horn has to be damaged, or the sensation has to be so intense that it propagates through the enamel coating. This pain, however, was different; this was an acute, simultaneous burning and stabbing sensation all along the horn, penetrating through the horn and into her head, generating the most splitting headache she had ever felt. She knew that in this compromising position, she could easily damage her horn if she yanked out. _What the... this is... some kind of security mechanism... which means this is definitely a horn-lock..._ she suppressed her conscious train of thought, focussing instead on sending all manner of signals to different segments of her horn, modifying its arcane signature. There was no telling what signals needed to be sent, nor in what pattern, or even if they needed to be sent in some kind of order...

_Wait a minute..._ Twilight blinked. The pain was gone. Her horn still felt quite tender, but the pain was gone. She backed up, and her horn came free of the hole. Where the stone was lit up in red, it was now blue, and spreading across the wall's intricate patterns. The wall began to shake a little, and slowly, the middle panel of the inscribed wall lowered, the magical trigger bringing an ancient mechanism to life. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy stepped back, cautiously watching in awe; Twilight just gazed at the top of the sinking stone plate, waiting patiently on the room to reveal its secret. In her head, she reeled from the experience; _that was a horn-lock! How did I get it open that quickly? The odds of getting it by chance are how many billion to one? I remember reading about how they make them, they're nearly impossible to crack... all modern horn-locks are... wait... modern. Well there we go, this was made at least a thousand years ago... it must be one of the first ever made! Wow... that was... lucky._

As the door finally reached eye level, they could finally get a look at what lay behind. The first glance unveiled pristine wooden panels, and slowly they revealed themselves to be shelves, laden with hundreds upon hundreds of books. Twilight's eyes lit up, starting to fidget excitedly; her elation, however, was quickly dispelled. The door soon revealed something else in the room, and all three ponies gawped in horror as it came into view. As the door sank flush with the floor, a unicorn's skeleton slid forward and clattered on the ground. The skull rolled forward, free of the spine, and came to rest at Twilight's hooves.

"Uhm..."


	22. Tick Tock

"Twilight, are you alright?"

"Yeah... I won't be doing any heavy magic any time soon, but I'm okay..." The unicorn grunted, gently rubbing her horn. It still smarted a little from the horn-lock, sort of like a toothache. Fluttershy timidly sidestepped around the skeleton, and ventured a poke to the ribcage. She squeaked and retreated behind Rainbow Dash as the bones rattled. Twilight peered into the library ahead. "This... there's something not right with this."

"Gee..." Rainbow picked up the unicorn's skull on a hoof. "... ya think?"

"No, no, with this library..." She leaned forward, trying to get the best look she could without actually entering. Something in here claimed that poor unicorn's life, after all. "Hmm... everything in this library must have an enchantment, similar to the one on the artifacts. I wonder..." She leaned forward, and with a faint glow and a little groan, she pulled a book over from the nearest shelf. She held it up to check the title. _Stable & Cooper's Guide to Tax Law_. "This'll do." Under normal circumstances, she could never bring herself to destroy a book, but these were far from normal circumstances, and at least she could find a particularly inane volume to soften the blow. Not wasting any more time, she pulled the sword from its sheath on her back, and dropped the book on the doorway's floor. She grimaced, and brought the sword down on the tome. _Thunk._ When she opened her eyes and examined the book, it was perfectly intact; the sword had just bounced away harmlessly. "Just as I thought..."

"What?" Dash tilted her head as Twilight sheathed the sword again.

"Everything inside this room is indestructible. It was probably enchanted to make the archive last longer. If I could copy the spell and apply it to my own library that would be _great_, but that's not what we're here for. As for this poor colt here..." She tapped the unicorn's skull. Examination of the skeleton revealed it to be quadrupedal - recent. "... I can't find any evidence of damage to the bones, so I can safely guess he starved to death. Which makes sense when you think about it - if your whole library is completely safe from any kind of damage, then you don't need to actively repel intruders. You just lock them in. I think this door only opens from the outside." Twilight mused. Rainbow gulped and tossed the skull away.

"So what, do I have to dash in, grab the books and dash out?"

"You don't know what books you're looking for. Besides, I have a better idea..." She smirked, and levitated another few books from the nearest shelf and stacked them in the doorway, just over the line of stone where the door had retreated into. "If these books are indestructible, we can use them to keep the door wedged open!"

"That... works." Dash quirked an eyebrow. It took Twilight a number of minutes to gather enough books to fill the doorway from top to bottom and leave enough room to get in and out, _and _for the stacks to be stable. She eventually had to build the books into two pyramidal structures against either side of the door, leaving a narrow passage to climb through. Uneasily, the three ponies ventured inside.

"Rainbow, before we go any further, we need to form a backup plan."

"Okay?" Dash looked over her shoulder, back at the unicorn.

"If we hear the door, I need you to grab me and get me out as fast as possible. I might not be able to do it right away, but I can get the door open from the outside."

"... right." The pegasus took a few moments to go over the plan in her head. She made sure to stay ready, listening out for the door and keeping her wings flared and ready.

The three ponies split up and began to trawl the shelves. Only Twilight was searching with any focus; the two pegasi were largely just killing time. Rainbow Dash made sure to stick close behind Twilight, concentrating on the backup plan. Just as well - many of the volumes were written in an archaic form of Equestrian, barely understandable to modern ponies. Twilight was well-read enough to figure it out, but Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were largely clueless. The unicorn raced through shelf after shelf, skimming the spines for titles. The archive was well-categorised, and well-stocked; there were at least two floors of tall bookshelves, and the room was about fifteen by forty lengths in size. With time of the essence, she hastened through the shelves.

"Cookery... herbal recpies... no, no, _no!_" She yelled out in frustration. After her quick sweep of the top level, on which the door was positioned, she hopped over the guard-rail to start on the second. "Magic... now this is more like it!" Watching her from above, Dash stayed up top. She kept one ear trained on the door, listening for slipping books. She watched Twilight pull books from the shelf, spend a second or two deciphering the cover, and toss them away. _Today, Twilight!_ "This is all fascinating stuff, but not helpful... ancient pony magic seems to have been more element-based than the emotion-based magic we use today!" She took a few books from the shelf and stuffed them in her saddlebag; _Diaries of a Planeswalker_ and _Manual of the Elements_. "And they had _dozens_ of elements to draw on! Fire, water, earth, air, stone, metal, lightning, wood, flesh, light, ice, steam, sand, elements completely undetectable to the naked eye..."

"... and blood?" Dash chipped in, leaning over the railing, hoping to speed the process along.

"I... actually hadn't thought of that! _Of course!_" Returning her attention to the shelves, she proceeded to scour the shelves for books pertaining to elemental magic. Whole volumes dedicated to individual elements were tossed aside as irrelevant; _1001 Uses for Lithomancy_ and _Fundamentals of Photomancy_ were tossed aside, bumping books off the shelves behind her. The sound of falling books made Rainbow jump and look back at the door anxiously. Their makeshift brace was still holding - for now. _Take your time, no rush..._ "_Aha!_ I think this is our book. _Magic of the Body: An Index of Sarcomancy, Osteomancy and Haemomancy_!" She looked up excitedly, only to be met with puzzled expressions from the two pegasi. She sighed and tucked the book into her saddlebag. "Flesh, bone and blood magic. Now let's get out of here!" She instructed. Dash nodded dutifully and hopped over the barrier. "What... what are you doing?" Twilight asked. Rainbow said nothing and trotted around the corner, disappearing behind one of the bookshelves. With a firm thump, she kicked both legs against it, sending its contents tumbling to the floor in a heap. "Wh... oh! I get it..." Twilight hopped up on to the pile and clambered to the top, and used the top of the shelf to return to the top level. However, Fluttershy wasn't there waiting. She looked one way and then another, and saw her bolting for the door. A further peek around the corner revealed that the book stack was starting to slip, and the gap was gradually narrowing. She gasped and quickly followed.

On the floor below, Rainbow Dash fluttered to the upper level at a leisurely pace.

"Guys? Where'dja go?" Another _thud_ drew her attention to the door; she saw the end of a pink tail slip through the gap, about half the size it was when they entered, books tumbling from it. "No no no no _no no!_" She leaned forward into a full sprint, taking just three seconds to clear the length of the library, and skidded to a halt in view of the door. The gap was still closing, and Twilight was still picking her way up the pile. Rainbow gulped and galloped towards the door, long, flying leaps closing the distance rapidly. Twilight tripped on a book, her face landing square in the doorway. Dash braced herself, taking aim, closing her eyes, spreading her front hooves and craning her head to the side, pushing her spear's head out of harms way. On the next gallop, she remained airborne, and took off at full speed.

_Thump._

She felt Twilight's flank impact her neck, just as planned. She heard her squeal in surprise. So far, so good. Her momentum propelled them forward, just as planned. She could only hope she wasn't that split second too late.

_Whoosh._

A wall of cold air told her that they'd cleared the doorway, just as planned. Opening her eyes, she watched the bewildered unicorn sail across the room, and tumble along the floor on landing. A few bruises, nothing serious. Dash, conversely, carried on into the clearing, and brought herself to a floating stop in the far doorway. Behind her, the door finally closed too small to crawl through, only two books and a few cyan feathers left wedged inside. She turned to perform a headcount; one... two.

"That was..." Twilight grunted, brushing herself off. "... a bit too close..."

* * *

><p>Three young fillies, draped in crimson capes, stood outside a door. High above it, a large sign over the wooden building read <em>The Hoofington Arms<em>. The building, like much of the town, was a drab, dark brown; regardless of who lived inside, it certainly _looked_ less cheerful than bright and colourful Ponyville. Since they'd arrived, they made a point to find somewhere warm to stop for a breather; time, however, had gotten away from them, and when they woke, the shadows were at a markedly different angle. It wasn't dark yet by any stretch of the imagination, but it certainly wouldn't be long. The three shared uneasy glances.

"So... we just go in, ask for directions, and leave?" Applebloom asked her companions.

"Right." Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle replied. Applebloom inhaled and steeled herself, and leaned forward to push the door open.

"_Hey! Wait!_" Another young voice called from behind them. Perplexed, the three looked around, to see another young filly galloping towards them through the snowy streets, wearing another of their scarlet capes.

"... Dinky?" Scootaloo's jaw hung open a little. "_Dinky!_" The unicorn slid to a halt, just a few feet short of knocking the other three ponies over.

"Hey guys! I ran _all_ the way here! I hope I didn't miss too much!" Dinky Hooves panted, exhausted but still unable to contain her excitement.

"Wow! How did you find us?" Sweetie Belle responded in tone. Dinky just pointed to the scooter tracks in the snow. Scootaloo chuckled and stepped in front of her scooter.

"Alright! You're just in time!" Applebloom bounced. "We were about to stop and get directions for Canterlot!"

"Uhm... you can see it in the side of the mountain..." Dinky quirked a brow.

"But _all_ quests need to stop in an inn at least once!" Scootaloo whined.

"Uh... right." Dinky chuckled. Drawing strength from their (slightly) increased numbers, Applebloom shoved open the door of the inn.

Inside, the inn was no less dreary than it was outside. It was dimly lit, a little dusty, and the patrons lumbered around in a lazy fashion. The front door opened straight into the bar, sparsely populated at this point in the day. A few ponies slumped in front of some greasy looking food, a world-weary looking unicorn tended the bar, idly cleaning some glasses, and a single pony sat on one of the barstools, their features obscured by a tattered purple cape. The sights weren't incredibly comforting to the four little fillies, but regardless, Applebloom took charge and marched right up to the bar. She hopped up on to a barstool and leaned over to talk to the barkeep.

"Hey mister, can you tell us the way to..." She began. The innkeeper groaned and cut her off.

"No foals in the bar. Scram, kiddo."

"Ah was just lookin' for..."

"I said _beat it!_" This stallion was having none of it. Applebloom scowled and jumped off the stool.

"Where..." The pony in the purple cloak turned, revealing her face. A single, frazzled, white bang hung along the side of her face, contrasting with her blue coat and horn. "... where are you lookin' for?" She slurred, setting down a drink. The clear, brown liquid sloshed over the bar.

"Easy there rummy, or I'll kick you out with 'em!" The innkeeper interrupted. Applebloom started to back away, and the other three crusaders held the door open for her.

"_Eagh,_ I keep giving you bits, you keep giving me drink, and we're all cool..." The intoxicated unicorn barked back, retreating into her cloak. The barkeeper just huffed and resumed his work. The four little fillies promptly departed.

"Well, that was... interesting..." Scootaloo blinked as the door swung shut behind them.

* * *

><p>Three ponies sat around a table at restaurant for lunch, reconvening after asking some questions around town. Pinkie Pie was perfectly happy to tuck in, a shiny firework sticking out of her saddlebag; Rarity and Applejack, however, were less concerned with their food. The only sounds were Pinkie's contented munching - the other two ponies were too deep in worry to keep conversation.<p>

"So what do you wanna do now, girls? How long do we have 'til Twilight and Fluttershy and Dashie get back?" Pinkie asked cheerfully, trying to lighten the mood. She wasn't being blithely ignorant - she hoped that she could at least try and keep their spirits up. Her efforts, however, were met with silence.

This silence was shattered when the door of the restaurant swung open, and a grey pegasus charged inside. With her head in profile, they could see one amber eye looking around urgently, and a messy, soft yellow mane bounced on her head. As she skidded to a halt, her cutie mark came into view; a small cloud of bubbles.

"Has anypony seen a young filly? Unicorn, kinda greyish, yellow mane?" She asked to the room. A clump of snow dropped from her hoof as she tucked her wings back to her sides. Rarity gasped. _Is that... it's worth a shot._

"Is her name Dinky Hooves?" She ventured. The pegasus turned to face her, making both eyes apparent; they were pointed in clearly different directions. Despite this, her expression remained wholly serious.

"Y... yes!" The pegasus bounded over to their table, stopping at it with a slight nudge. "Have you seen her?" She panted.

"Earlier she was outside my shop looking for Sweetie Belle... I don't suppose she's... you know her or anything?"

"Oh, yes!" She nodded. "I'm Dinky's mother, Derpy Hooves, you might have seen me around sometime delivering the mail. She's told me all about the Cutie Mark Crusaders. And you are...?"

"Oh! Sorry. My name is Rarity, I'm Sweetie Belle's sister. And this..." She pointed a hoof across the table. "Is Applejack, Applebloom's sister. I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say... Dinky is missing?" Derpy nodded gravely. "That's interesting... we can't find Sweetie Belle, Applebloom and Scootaloo anywhere either." Rarity sighed. Derpy turned to Pinkie Pie.

"And are you Scootaloo's..."

"_Ahem..._" Rarity nudged Derpy and hushed her tone a little. "Scootaloo is an orphan. She's in Cheerilee's care for the time being. This is just a friend of ours, Pinkie Pie." Derpy inhaled deeply in acknowledgement and nodded, before they resumed normal conversational volume.

"So, when did you see Dinky?" She asked, worry returning to her tone.

"It was a few hours ago."

"Darn... that's about the last time I saw her too. The other Crusaders left a note for her, and when she came home earlier she left again right away and oh Celestia I've completely forgotten about that letter, of _course!_" Derpy gasped. Applejack winced a little at the mention of Celestia's name, but not noticeably so. "Come on! I think I know where the Cutie Mark Crusaders went!" As clumsily as she had arrived, Derpy stormed out the door, leaving the other three ponies to hastily abandon their food and follow.

* * *

><p>The four ponies stumbled into the Ponyville post office one by one, and Derpy immediately set to work trying to find the letter. She ducked and dove around the room, rifling through stacks of letters intently. While she searched, Rarity raised an eyebrow, and picked up one stray envelope from the floor by the door. Big, messy, crayon letters, reading simply, 'Dinky'.<p>

"Uhm... is..." Before Rarity could finish her sentence, Derpy leaped over and grabbed the letter in her mouth.

"Fhhff ihf!"

"... I'm sure." Quirking an eyebrow, she pulled it from Derpy's mouth and opened it to read. "'Dear Dinky, we're really.. hmm... misspelled 'couldn't'... when you got better... we're going on an adventure to _Canterlot_, to find Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow Dash? If you're quick you can catch us before we get too far?' This is... do they know? How could they know? I thought it was a secret!"

"What's secret?" Derpy tilted her head earnestly. Rarity and Applejack exchanged worried looks; after a moment, Applejack nodded once. It was going to have to happen sooner or later.

"Miss Hooves... we have reason to believe your daughter may be in danger." Rarity began. The colour drained from Derpy's face. "What we're about to tell you will likely shock and disturb you, and before we do, you _must_ swear to tell nopony of this information." Derpy closed her eyes and inhaled. She reached over Pinkie's shoulder to close the door behind them. Keeping them closed, eyebrows lowered, she spoke in a soft, grave tone.

"I don't care what this information is. I don't care what you ponies are doing in secret. I don't care what you want me to do, _as long as it'll keep my daughter safe._"

"Alright." Applejack spoke up. "Now this is gonna sound a lil' far-fetched, but ah swear, it's the honest truth..."


	23. The Last Piece

The door of Fluttershy's cottage slowly swung open, and the last of the orange sunlight filtered into the room past the pegasus entering.

"Uhm... hello? Anypony home?" She asked, looking around. Cautiously, she took another few steps inside. Still silence.

"Ah, the others must still be_AH!_" Twilight Sparkle, following close behind, nearly jumped out of her skin when not one, but _two_ ponies poked their heads out of hiding into the doorway, wearing goofy expressions and sticking their tongues out. The surprise also sent Fluttershy scurrying behind a birdhouse.

"_Boo!_"

"What th- _Pinkie!_" She recoiled, still panting in shock.

"Hah, you're a natural!" Pinkie Pie giggled, bumping hooves with the stranger; a grey pegasus.

"Well _duh!_ You don't know Derpy Hooves?" Rainbow Dash pushed in past Twilight, greeting the stranger eagerly.

"Wait... you know this pony?" Twilight shook herself off and closed the door behind herself.

"Sure! Back in Cloudsdale, she was like a big sister to me and Fluttershy. We were still pretty young when she had to leave, but it was still _awesome _when she was there!" Dash beamed. Derpy blushed a little and chuckled.

"Had to leave? Why?" Twilight blinked.

"I..." Derpy began, only for Rainbow to cut in and resume telling the story.

"When it turned out her daughter was a unicorn, she moved to Ponyville and got a job carrying the mail! She is the _best mom..._"

"I guess that explains why I've never met you before, since all my mail goes through Spike... which reminds me! He wasn't awake earlier, I don't know if he's still tired from our... trip... to..." Twilight stopped her train of thought, and turned a suspicious eye to Derpy Hooves. "... Pinkie, why is... is..."

"Derpy."

"... why is Derpy here?"

"Well..." Derpy lifted her hoof and started to explain, only to be interrupted again when Pinkie Pie jumped in her way.

"When we were eating lunch she came in looking for Dinky and then we told her that the Cutie Mark Crusaders are missing so then we went back to her place because there was this letter that said where they were going and then we told her why we think they went there and then I got to listen to how Equestria was made again and the_mf_!" Pinkie's flow of word soup was interrupted when Twilight clamped a hoof to her mouth.

"Hold up a second. The Cutie Mark Crusaders are _missing?_ _And_ you let Derpy in on this whole... thing? What... I..." The expression on Twilight's face conveyed what she couldn't articulate. One eye half closed, the brow of the other halfway up her forehead, mouth pulled back into a grimace and one hoof raised to her temple.

"_If_ somepony will let me speak..." Derpy gently shoved Pinkie Pie out of her way to talk to Twilight directly. "Yes, the Cutie Mark Crusaders - my daughter included - are missing. Your friends Applejack and Rarity were galloping around town looking for them, and I ran into them looking for Dinky. Turns out, the other three left a note for her saying they were going to Canterlot to find you guys..." Twilight's eyes went wide. "... that's what I thought. And that's when they let me in on your... adventure, as a possible reason why."

"The whole thing?" Twilight bleated incredulously. Derpy nodded; her one unfocussed eye at odds with her otherwise serious expression. "_Ugh!_ It was supposed to be kept a _total secret!_ We can't just keep telling everypony and anypony about it!"

"Wait up, Twilight. I say Derpy here is trustworthy." Rainbow Dash interrupted. Derpy struck a slightly dramatic pose, right on cue. Fluttershy nodded in agreement from behind the birdhouse. "Plus, she might as well stick with us and help Applejack and Rarity bail the little squirts out of trouble."

"And you're not going to help with Scootaloo?" Twilight tilted her head. Dash sighed.

"_Bleh_. Annoying little orange thing never leaves me alone."

"_Rainbow!_" Twilight barked. "How can you be so callous? She's in danger!" Rainbow hung her head in shame.

"I... uhm..." _Maybe a little too blunt..._

"I expected better from you, Rainbow Dash. Anyway, Pinkie. Did you find any leads on Trixie?"

"Hoofington!"

"Hoofington?" Twilight raised a brow. Pinkie nodded.

"We figured she'd be all washed up there, but I don't know how since there's no beach in Hoofington. I _wish_ there was a beach in Hoofington, cos then I could go and play there, and..." Pinkie continued to ramble on, and Twilight zoned out, giving the idea a sanity check. _Hoofington... as first guesses go, it's not bad. It's a start._ "...and that's how I met Rainbow Dash!"

"Uhm..." Twilight blinked. Dash looked equally nonplussed. She shook her head and ignored the non-sequitur. "Okay. Hoofington it is. It's on the way to Canterlot, so I guess... that's convenient. Now, where are Applejack and Rarity?"

"They said they had some things to take care of." Pinkie shrugged. Twilight cast a worried look at the setting sun.

"They'd better hurry up, we're running out of time... Everypony, rest up while I study these books. You'll need your strength. This could be another long night..."

* * *

><p><em>Smash.<em>

A stick of wood snapped on a metal pole, with the aid of two firm, simultaneous hoof-strikes. The two pieces, one with a large, flat metal blade embedded in it, fell away, landing on a growing pile of similarly broken axes. An earth pony picked up another axe in her teeth, and propped it up against the pole, supported by a crate. With a single, dexterous movement, she spun on her front hooves and delivered a sharp kick to the tool, one on either side of the pole.

_Snap._

Splintering apart, the two pieces tumbled from their support, just like the last one. When she went to replace it and try again, she noticed a major discrepancy between the piles of broken axes and intact ones; more precisely, she was down to the last one. It was unremarkable in many ways; a little old-fashioned in design, but then again, so were many of the axes that lay in two pieces behind her.

"Twilight, ah hope you're right about this..." She mused grimly, and propped it up against the pole. Once again, she turned, reared back, and bucked her hind hooves back.

_Thunk._

That was odd. She looked over her shoulder, seeing the axe behind her perfectly intact. _Better try it again!_

_Clack._

She peered over her flank again. Still nothing. She glared at the tool, and on her next approach, she got a few lengths' run-up, before swivelling at the last moment and putting all of her momentum into the kick.

_Ka-shunk._

"There we g... wait..." She looked around a final time to see that, rather than the axe snapping against the pole, the pole had bent backwards, and the axe had slipped over it without so much as a scratch. She smirked, and retrieved the intact tool to inspect it. Her smile slid from her face when she looked up, and saw the tremendous pile of broken wood and steel on the floor; every axe on the farm, bar one. "Now ah just gotta explain all these to Big Macintosh..."

* * *

><p>"Come on Rarity, you can do this..." The unicorn took a few deep breaths, hidden behind a tree in Ponyville's central square, within spitting distance of the town hall's entrance. Lowering her head, her horn began to glow, building into a short flash. When the light subsided, she had apparently disappeared; however, phantom hoofsteps in the snow belied her presence. Tip-toeing carefully around the hall, she made her way to the basement, where some of the town's oldest treasures were kept.<p>

She'd done her homework on this. When the last of Ponyville's barons died and the mayoral office was set up, many of the barony's riches were bequeathed to the town, and have been gathering dust under the baron's townhouse-turned-town hall ever since. There had been a few initiatives to set up a museum for the collection in the past, but none of them ever gathered enough steam. Her reasoning for investigating here of all places was simple; all the other artifacts found thus far had in some way returned to their point of origin over the years. Dash's spear had returned to the gryphon kingdoms, Pinkie's rocket was tucked away under Sugarcube corner, Fluttershy's staff was found in the Everfree forest, and Twilight's sword stayed in Canterlot. It only made sense that her dagger had, at some point, made its way back to Ponyville, and lay with the rest of the barons' riches.

Her experimental invisibility spell was holding up well - not even a shimmer of her body could be seen. _So far, so good._ She did a quick visual scan of the basement, and seeing nopony around, she locked the hatch behind herself, and uncloaked. It was dark, the basement was expansive, and there were an awful lot of boxes. So she decided to cheat - setting her horn aglow, she initiated the same spell she used to locate gems in the ground. Smirking, she lifted her head to see where that left her. Her smile, however, quickly departed. Every second box appeared to contain half a dozen gemstones, at least. _Well that was helpful, Rarity. Want a blindfold while you're at it?_ She thought for a moment about the dagger itself. She remembered from the palace that its gems were arranged much like Corundum's belt ornament; three pale blue gemstones in a line, the middle one a little larger than the other. _But what were those gems... aquamarine? Blue topaz? Spinel? Lapis lazuli? 'Blue' doesn't really narrow it down..._ _Wait! Corundum... sapphire!_ Armed with this deduction, she focussed a little more, narrowing down the scope of her spell. _Sapphires_...

At the back of the cavernous basement, she saw the contents of a single box lit up. Three pale blue gemstones, arranged in a line. _I have you now, handsome..._

* * *

><p>Twilight had found herself a nice little cove in one of the windows of Fluttershy's cottage to curl up in and read. <em>Alright, time is short so don't indulge, Twilight... skim.<em> She took a deep breath and pulled _Magic of the Body_ from her discarded saddlebag. _Let's see... contents... Of course, the whole book just _had_ to be in ye olde Ekwestriane, didn't it? Sarco... sarco... Cutie Marks? Hmm... worth a look, but I'll save it for a little later.. Osteo... wow, some of these look really bad... here we go, Haemomancy, page 412. _She flipped the book open in the middle and sifted through the pages, releasing their collected dust. The book was in immaculate condition, but it still had a millennium to gather dust.

_Eugh... okay. Blood manipulation, blood transfiguration, here we go, blood rituals. 'Bloode rityuaels...' who wrote this thing? 'Blood rituals are a complex form of magic, combining elemental, sacrificial and ritual components to pierce the barriers between planes. The elements used determine which plane is breached, the insignia drawn in the blood determines the type of exchange undergone, and the type of sacrifice determines the depth of the exchange. The elements...' elements... elements... the story said something about lighting the blood pattern on fire, so let's see, fire, fire... 'Fire, flames and sparks connect with...' I'm not even going to _try_ and pronounce that._ She made a note of the bewildering sequence of letters, some of them not used in modern Equestrian at all, to check against the _Diaries of a Planeswalker _later.

_Insignias... okay, this seems simple enough, these drawings are pretty clear. Wow... there sure are a lot of symbols here. Messages, transport, summoning... oh, here come the complicated ones... drawing energy, dispelling energy, banishment! Let's see... 'This insignia removes beings from the plane of the caster to the target plane. In order to work at all, it requires a minimum sacrifice of...'_ She gulped. Light reading this was not. _'... a hand, a hoof or an organ. As with all insignias, the potency of the ritual rises with sacrifice, and the minimum sacrifice required increases with the ability of the target to resist.' That's definitely not good... 'At higher potencies, the ritual begins to cleanse any residual magic left behind by the target. Demons typically require a minimum of a single life sacrifice to banish.'_ She began to drip cold sweat, and even her internal voice began to waver. _'Magical artifacts can contribute to the potency of the ritual, but on their own they are not enough to banish a demon.' _Sighing and shivering a little to herself, she turned away from the book. _So finding Trixie's element will help, but it doesn't get around the fact that somepony needs to give their life to make this happen... and we're still not even sure if we're in the right ballpark..._ She shook her head and turned back to the tome. _There has to be another way._ She flipped through a few more insignias, and finding nothing, she pushed the book to one side, and pulled out _Diaries of a Planeswalker_.

_Hmm... what was that name again?_ She scanned the book - a slightly messier manuscript - looking for the distinctive mish-mash of letters. After a few minutes of flipping back and forth, checking for references to fire realms, she eventually happened upon the entries of interest. _'Today I have entered what can only reasonably be described as the plane of hell. Without my enchantments of protection, I and my diary with me would have been incinerated upon arrival. They call this plane...' there must be a pronunciation guide for this somewhere. '... and its masters the Djinn. The Djinn are mischievous, greedy, wrathful beings, who like the flames, shift form on a whim and wreak terrible fates upon those who cross them.' Fits the story's description of Celestia so far. 'At a moments' notice, they can whip up powerful combinations of curses to bestow centuries of horror on their victims. Heavens preserve Equestria should one of these beasts be summoned to it. I shall not stay in this plane for long; while I task myself with uncovering the secrets of the planes, perhaps this is one plane whose secrets are best left just that - secret.'_

Twilight shuddered. She rubbed her face in her hooves and pushed the book aside for a moment. _Heavy stuff..._ With a sigh, she returned to _Magic of the Body_.

* * *

><p>The four young fillies pulled their capes tighter around themselves as they mounted their scooter. Scootaloo had spent some time sleeping, and Applebloom had been tracking down some supplies, while Sweetie Belle and Dinky Hooves kept an eye on their convoy. Something about this town just gave them the creeps, and the setting sun wasn't helping. They figured there wasn't much worth sticking around for; once they could pick out Canterlot on the horizon, they might as well be on their way to a friendlier town. The journey through the winter night would be hard, but such is the way of adventure.<p>

"Wow, it sure is pretty tonight!" Dinky marvelled at the dusk sky, the first stars appearing as they left the town.

"Yeah... it's almost like that night we were watching the meteor shower!" Sweetie Belle agreed.

"That was _bee-yoo_-tiful! Remember, Scootaloo?" Applebloom chipped in, taking a quick glance at the sky before looking over to their pegasus chauffeur. Scootaloo just sighed and kept diligently beating her wings.

"Yeah. Just_ awesome._" She grumbled. Applebloom raised an eyebrow. _What's gotten into her?_

"You should have been there, Dinky!" Sweetie Belle turned to the other unicorn, both of them huddled in the back with Applebloom for warmth.

"I think I was watching that meteor shower with my mom. She's the greatest!"

"Is she better than Applejack? Huh?" Applebloom gave Dinky a light shove.

"Or Rarity? Rarity's pretty great!" Sweetie Belle giggled.

"_Augh, shut UP!_" Scootaloo yelled from nowhere, the scooter skidding to a sudden halt. She lay over the handlebars panting. The three ponies in the back blinked and gawped at the little pegasus, shocked.

"Scootaloo, are you..." Applebloom ventured, after a few moments' tense silence.

"I... I'm fine." She leaned forward, and the scooter began to move again.

The rest of the trip was quiet.


	24. Great and Powerful

In a cottage on the edge of the Everfree forest, seven ponies and a baby dragon gathered around the middle of the main room by candlelight, the last of the twilight fading from the sky outside.

"Alright everypony, we're almost there. We have a lead on Trixie, we've found all of our artifacts, from my studies we know what to do, and thanks to Derpy Hooves here, we have a lead on the Cutie Mark Crusaders, which happens to be on the same course." Twilight announced, opening the discussion.

"Uh, Twi..." Applejack raised a hoof. "Are y'sure it's such a good idea to go after the lil' 'uns and go huntin' demons in the same trip?"

"Unfortunately, I think they may know at least some of what we do. I made a trip back to my library while you were out, and somepony had been in there, _and_ read the book. It's highly unlikely that them going missing the same day was just a coincidence. Now, I did a lot of pretty intense studying in the last couple of hours, but I won't bore you with the details. First, and I guess this is just satisfying my own curiosity..." The unicorn pulled _Magic of the Body_ over and laid it on the ground, opened on a bizarre diagram that looked roughly like a pony's flank, drawn at a weird angle. "...cutie marks."

"Cutie Marks?" Rainbow Dash tilted her head.

"I thought those were already understood." Rarity chipped in.

"But! After what we've been through, we can't be entirely sure of anything we know. It was something that was bugging me, so when it turned up in this book, I just had to check it out. Turns out our knowledge of them is largely accurate, and has nothing to do with Celestia. Not big news, I know, but it's comforting to know something's true. I guess cutie marks must have been less important to the ancient ponies, since they would have been covered with clothes all the time, I don't know..."

"Actually, that wasn't the case at all, darling." Rarity interrupted, before Twilight could start rambling speculation. "You were a touch busy at the time, but something we noticed back in the palace - and I think all of us did - was that everypony was wearing some kind of ornament that looked strikingly like what you'd think their cutie mark should look like. For example, the Baroness had a three sapphires studded in this _delightful_ white enamel belt buckle."

"Oh yeah! An' Rose had a little metal thingy shaped like an apple on her hat. Ah want one of those..." Applejack chuckled.

"And and and andWHU-" Pinkie bounced in excitedly, accidentally tripping on the carpet and upending the contents of her saddlebags on to the floor; however, the balloon-adorned firework, rolling over to Twilight's hooves, demonstrated exactly what she had meant to say.

"Those are nice, but they still could have been there by chance..." Twilight raised an eyebrow sceptically.

"Oh yeah? Well, guess what Spectra had pinned to her shirt!" Rainbow Dash smirked proudly, and turned in place to show her flank - and her cutie mark - to the others.

"Okay, I guess that makes sense... anyway, moving on. Secondly, we already know what Celestia isn't, but I've been able get some idea what I think she is." Pulling out the _Diaries of a Planeswalker_, she threw it open on some of the pages about the fire element plane, accompanied by a couple of sketches. "This book is the diary of a pony who spent a number of years travelling the planes, a number of coexistent dimensions that seem to..." She looked up to catch a glimpse of increasingly bewildered faces. She didn't need to be told again. "Sorry. Other worlds, that can only be accessed by magic. I did some searching, and I think I've found something that matches the story's description pretty closely. It's a kind of fire demon called a 'djinn', greedy, wrathful, shapeshifting tricksters who specialise in curses. If that doesn't hit the nail on the head, then I don't know what does."

"So, how do we get rid of 'er?" Applejack sat forward on her hooves. Twilight took a deep breath.

"That's... the tricky part. This book has all the information we need about the ritual, and once we have Trixie, we can start tracking down her element and artifact, but there's one other thing that I don't know if we'll be able to find..."

"Which is?" The earth pony craned her neck forward.

"... for a demon of Celestia's power, the ritual needs at a pony life sacrifice." Twilight stated flatly. Everypony else recoiled in abject horror; death was easy enough to speak of, but when the prospect of it - violent death, even - stared them in the face, the story was very different. Everypony except one. Still standing calmly, a determined look upon her face, resolve in her voice, she inhaled and responded;

"... I'll do it." The shock hit double when Rainbow Dash spoke. Rarity withered and fainted. Pinkie's mane started to uncoil and straighten. Fluttershy whimpered and clasped her mouth in her hooves.

"Ya can't be serious, Rainbow!" Applejack bleated. "That's _crazy!_"

"Don't do it, Dashie! We love you!" Pinkie Pie pounced on the pegasus, hugging her tightly around the neck from an awkward angle behind her. Dash just sighed and wrestled herself gently out of the embrace.

"Somepony has to. And I'm not gonna let that be some innocent pony, or one of you guys."

"But Rainbow Dash, _you're_ an innocent pony!" Twilight protested.

"Then who did you have in mind, Twilight?" Dash snapped back. Twilight squirmed uncomfortably.

"I... I don't know..."

"Besides, am I really that innocent? Just think about it for a second. If anypony could have done just _one_ thing differently to stop all of this from ever happening, it's me."

"What..."

"All the way back in the palace, a thousand years ago, if I'd just kept my big mouth shut instead of mouthing off to the Princess... Priestess or whatever..." Twilight narrowed her eyes, trying to comprehend the quite tenuous logic behind Dash's claim. Before Dash could ramble any more, Applejack grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.

"Rainbow! Get a hold of yerself! This is no time for wallowin'. Throwin' down yer life for us is one thing, but pityin' yerself over it gets nothin' done."

"Sorry..." Rainbow sighed. "But my decision still stands. It has to be done, and I won't let any harm come to my friends. And if that means I have to die for it, then just fine." She kept her stout gaze on Applejack. The earth pony exchanged worried looks with Twilight. Twilight bit her lip, contemplating the dilemma deeply. She broke the silence after a moment, her voice wavering.

"A-alright, Rainbow... if it's the only way, then alright." Gradually, everypony began to display dismayed acceptance. Nothing was said for a little while; the silence not as awkward as it was reverent, almost mournful. Fluttershy hid behind Derpy, stifling a cry. Pinkie's mane went dead flat. Applejack pushed her hat behind her head and rubbed her ear. Dash kept a brave face, and nodded stoically to Twilight in acknowledgement. "Okay, saddle up and move out. Every second we waste here, the Cutie Mark Crusaders get a bigger lead on us."

* * *

><p>Hoofington was a small town a little off the beaten track, roughly halfway between Canterlot and Ponyville, just about at the point where southern Equestria's rolling fields and open plains give way to the Whitetail Wood and the foothills of the Horsehead mountains. Barely larger than a village, the town has rarely seen good times, and every aspect of it reflected that - grim-faced ponies living in dreary houses on dirty streets. On any other day, the party of eight would have made a point to avoid the town entirely; tonight though, they had a job to do. Two days after the blizzard, the snow was beginning to clear from the most beaten paths of the town, and they entered through muddy clearings in the mucky frost.<p>

"If this where Trixie's from, a whole lotta things start makin' sense." Applejack quipped as they passed by the unpainted, half-timbered houses and shops of the town's main thoroughfare. Twilight leaned over and gave her a light kick to the side.

"Keep it _down_, Applejack, we're not looking for trouble!" She whispered harshly. The earth pony just grumbled, and they carried on quietly. The mood had been sombre since they left Ponyville, and this town wasn't doing anything to help. As they approached something that looked like the town's centre, Twilight stopped by the modest fountain, halting the convoy. "Alright everypony, we're going to split up again. Applejack, Rarity, Derpy and Rainbow Dash, you sweep the town for the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Two on the ground, two in the air." While the former three nodded dutifully, Dash muttered something undecipherable, before nodding in acknowledgement. Derpy gave her a light shove and a glare. _Oh, grow up, _it seemed to say. _Throwing your life away heroically doesn't entitle you to be mean._ "The rest of us - Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Spike and myself - we'll start looking for Trixie. The rest of you can join us when you've finished your search."

"Shouldn't take too long, ah reckon if they're here, we'll be pretty quick to know about it." Applejack remarked, looking around the small plaza. Not needing to be told twice, Applejack and Rarity took off to start combing the streets and side streets, and Derpy took to the air, reluctantly followed by Rainbow Dash.

"Okay, let's see... Trixie... Trixie..." Twilight began to mumble to herself, scanning the square for plausible places. _Applejack said she's likely to be in a bar of some kind... now what does a bar look li-_ Her train of thought was interrupted by a door slamming open, and the squeal of a pony being tossed out. The four of them immediately turned their eyes to the source of the sound, a building about halfway down one of the smaller streets, dimly lit by a small lantern outside. On the ground, they could make out the shape of a pony rolling on the ground, draped in a ragged cape. _Is that?_ Twilight started trotting cautiously along the street, and the other two ponies followed. As they neared the scene, they could make out voices.

"_... and stay out!_" A gruff stallion's voice called from inside the door, before it slammed shut again.

"Who the _hell_ do you think I am? I'm the Celestia-damned _Great and Powerful Trixie!_" The pony on the ground snapped back.

"Well, I guess it is a small town..." Twilight blinked.

"_That's_ Trixie?" Pinkie raised an eyebrow at the surly heap of pony on the floor. "She doesn't _look_ wet..."

"What are _you_ looking at?" Trixie suddenly turned to them, noticing their presence. She was certainly in a state - her front was splashed with liquid, she was dribbling slightly, and there was an unpleasant smell coming from her direction.

"Uhm, I..." Twilight backed up a little. _Maybe this wasn't such a good idea..._

"Hey... I remember you..." Trixie mumbled, staggering to her hooves. "You... you're the pony that _ruined me!_" She yelled, blundering up to Twilight and shoving her roughly. "What-" _Hic_. "Whaddayou want? Come to finish the job?" She sidestepped around haphazardly, eventually steadying herself against a wall. "Laugh at me some more?"

"Well, it is kinda _hmph!_" Twilight quickly pulled her scarf around Spike, keeping him from finishing his sentence. _Where do I even begin..._

"Trixie, we were looking for you, but it's because... uh..." She cringed, and swallowed her pride. "Trixie, we need your help." She put on the most earnest face she could.

"PFFFF _hahah!_" The drunken unicorn burst out laughing. Pinkie threw in a little giggle, and Fluttershy prodded her. "_You_ want _my_ help?" Trixie giggled, barely keeping herself upright against the wall of the inn. Twilight glared, unflinching. "Oh, this _is_ rich!"

"Trixie, this is _serious._" Twilight tried to grab Trixie and shake her, only for the washed-up stage magician to wriggle free and stumble back across the street.

"Oh, you are?" She stared sternly back at her assailant, before breaking down in another fit of laughter. "That's even better!_ Hah!_" She stumbled around, humming some non-descript tune to herself, occasionally blurting out a couple of scrambled words, only resume her delirious cackling. Quickly growing tired of this, Twilight yanked Trixie over to her with a quick flash of her horn. Once she skidded to a halt on her back, she stood over her, and pinned her cape with her hooves.

"I mean _business_." She barked, glaring down at her.

"... are you coming on to me, Twilight Sparkle?" Trixie giggled, blushing a little. Twilight's eye twitched.

"_Augh_, Trixie, snap out of it!" Twilight stamped her hooves in frustration. The _thump_ of a hoof meeting the ground so close to her head sparked a panic reaction in Trixie, and she spontaneously flung Twilight into the air telekinetically. Not very far - only a length or two, but enough to give her time to pick herself up and disorient Twilight upon landing. Fluttershy grabbed Spike out of the air, and Pinkie helped Twilight to her hooves, but in just those few seconds it took to recover, Trixie had already started galloping down the street. Twilight sighed and started after her. "This is _definitely_ gonna be a long night..."


	25. What Do You Do With A Drunken Unicorn?

Up in the skies over Hoofington, two pegasi carefully surveyed the dimly lit streets. Small as the town was, the lighting conditions still made it a pain to figure out what was a pony on the ground and what was just some loose trash, or a cloud fragment.

"Hey, Derpy," Rainbow Dash swooped in a little closer, moving in to hearing range.

"Hm?"

"I meant to ask... what's with the eye? It wasn't like that in Cloudsdale."

"Oh, so it is noticeable?" Derpy chuckled, looking over to her side, showing off their obvious discrepancy; her right eye looking attentively towards Dash, the left gazing vacantly at nothing in particular. She lifted her hoof to her face and sharply tapped her left eye. Rather than squishing slightly, it made a little _dink_. "This one's glass. Had a little accident a few years back." _Hm. Makes sense._ "Can never get it to point the right way."

"_You'll never take me alive, ahahah!_" The distant call echoed out below them, drawing their attention to the ground. A somewhat muddy unicorn in a tattered cape was tearing down a street, stumbling once or twice along the way. Derpy blinked incredulously.

"Trixie?"

"Mhm." Rainbow replied flatly.

* * *

><p>Barrelling around the corner into a small alley, Twilight pursued her quarry into the darkness, Spike clinging on for dear life, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy close behind.<p>

"Twilight! Get down!" Spike barked from his crow's-nest position atop her head. Rather than question his advice, the unicorn immediately ducked, proning against the ground and skidding for a length or so. Spike swung down on to her back, just in time for a long, metal blade to pass through the spot where he was, between Twilight's horn and her right ear. Both of them gulped. Pinkie Pie, not far behind, stopped on a dime, and Fluttershy collided with her tail end, also forced to a stop.

In just the second they had to spare, Twilight took a glance up at the blade. It was clearly a sword, a length long and with an ornately decorated handle, and judging by the far-from-pristine blade it was quite old. _Is that..._ It was surrounded by a soft, hazy blue glow, and a short way in front of them, also lit up by the same muted glow was Trixie, smirking, legs apart in a combative stance. Twilight rolled to the side, squashing Spike against the floor briefly, avoiding the clumsy downward strike that followed. Taking another moment for observation, she looked over her shoulder and psychically reached for her sword - if it was still there._ Kshing._ The handle slid into her field of vision. _If I still have mine... that means..._

She didn't have much time for argument - Trixie was already rearing up another swing. Twilight leapt backwards, performing something between a shy and a jump, and the sword _clanged_ against the stone of the wall next to her.

"Stay _still_, would you!" Trixie barked in frustration. Twilight reared up some more, and drew her sort in front of herself, holding it horizontally to present a defence. Trixie growled, and her sword swept awkwardly across the floor to attempt a lateral slash at Twilight's body. Spike buried his face in Twilight's mane.

_Sl-shing._

With poise and control, Twilight brought her sword around to block the strike, angling her blade so that Trixie's slid harmlessly overhead. Trixie screeched in exasperation, and quickly prepared another lumbering swing from above. Twilight wasted no time in parrying the strike; holding her sword at cross-angles, the swords met just hoof-widths from her face. She was easily more powerful than her adversary at the best of times, but with Trixie in this state, it was practically foal's play. With just the meagrest of shoves, she sent Trixie's sword careering into the air, breaking her grip on it and flinging it on to the rooftops.

"I'm not kidding around Trixie, we _need_ to talk to you!"

"_Never!_" Trixie wailed, and summoned a small puff of smoke from the floor - nowhere near enough to obsucre her escape fully - and bolted for the back of the alley. Twilight's jaw hung slack as she watched Trixie slowly attempt to climb a drainpipe to the top of one of the buildings, giggling to herself and occasionally shouting something about being 'great and powerful'.

"Pinkie, I'm never introducing you to alcohol. _Ever._"

* * *

><p>Twilight, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy reconvened at the top of the building; Twilight and Pinkie located a ladder to scurry up, and Fluttershy had the benefit of wings. They had more than enough time to corner Trixie before she struggled to the top of the drainpipe.<p>

"Aha! _I am the queen of the wall! Ah_oh. Uhm..." Trixie hauled her front half up, only to meet Twilight's castigating stare. "Uh... _thinkfast!_" She grinned maliciously, and with her sword just three lengths away along the rooftop, she could easily sweep it over, attempting to catch her pursuers' legs.

"Eep!" Pinkie jumped back at the last moment, prompting Twilight to follow suit; the light breeze from the blade fanned the bottom of her hooves. Fluttershy, being airborne, was perfectly safe. This moments' distraction was enough to give Trixie time to find purchase on the shingles and clamber up, assuming another sloppy, defensive stance, sword held in front of her. The three other ponies shied back, Twilight pulling out her weapon again. Fluttershy attempted to pull her staff free of its sling, but gave up after a couple of seconds, figuring that it was just too unwieldy for ready use.

"Trixie, stop this! We haven't got time to waste!"

"Catch me if you can!" Trixie tittered, jumping forward a little before backing around to leap over to the next building with a running start. Her sword floated along in the air behind her. Twilight sighed, and made a similar run for the gap. She fudged the landing, stumbling at the edge of the roof, giving Trixie another few seconds' head-start. _This is insane. I'm chasing an inebriated, washed-up parlour magician across the rooves of Hoofington in the middle of the night... and this is supposed to free Equestria. _Another jump, again barely made - she winded herself a little in the landing, and without Fluttershy's helping hoof, she might not have been able to recover the fumble. _Buck my life._ Trixie, nearly a full building's length ahead, dropped her sword by a chimney and scaled it, balancing uneasily on the top of it. "_No-one_ can catch the _grrrrr_-eat and powerful _Trixie!_" _Okay, no more games._ Twilight lowered her sword, and skidded to a halt just short of the chimney. In just a half-second or so, she charged up a short, mild concussive blast, and fired it at the top of the chimney. The shockwave was just enough to toss Trixie from the chimney-top, and the startled unicorn flailed wildly on the way down.

_Thump._

Trixie's flank connected with the roof shingles, and she yelped in pain. The drink dulled most of it, but that still hurt. Stunned, she rolled limply to the edge of the roof. Twilight had anticipated this - she was already diving for where she expected her to land. With not a moment to spare, Twilight caught one of Trixie's front hooves, and her hind hooves slid off. Her grip was fairly safe, and there was always Fluttershy on hand to help, but her position was most compromising - teetering on the edge of the second-storey roof, with a sword floating over her head.

"_Now_ can we talk?" Twilight growled. Trixie's eyes shifted from side to side, and reluctantly, she nodded.

"So, uh... come here often?"

"_Don't. Make me drop you._" Twilight glared contemptuously into Trixie's eyes. Something about the snowy roof, the cobblestone pavement below and the razor-sharp sword hanging overhead made the mischief vanish pretty sharpish. Her look said it all - a disdainful glower that read, _I don't like this anymore than you do, Trixie. But dammit, there's more important things at stake here._

"Al... alright... help me up, and we'll..." _Hic._ "... we'll talk." Trixie's voice began to tremble a little. Twilight gave a little nod to Fluttershy. The pegasus acknowledged, and got into position below Trixie. Steadily, she pushed her up from below, and before long, she was (comparatively) safe again. She let out a sigh of relief, and... promptly bolted for the next gap in the rooves, giggling deliriously to herself. "You'll never take me a_hglk-_" Mid-sentence, and mid-retreat, she was interrupted by a firm _thunk_ to her side. A multi-coloured blur careered into her from nowhere, knocking her clean off the roof.

"Wh- _Rainbow?_" Twilight stared, taken aback. Trixie's path through the air was controlled and precise, tracing an arc from the rooftop to a position in the middle of the street, landing quite neatly on another pony's back.

"Now, ya'll are gonna come with us..." The pony chuckled, carrying the dazed Trixie into a nearby alleyway.

"Applejack? What... I thought you guys were..."

"The Crusaders? We couldn't find 'em. They've moved on." Derpy spoke from beside her. Twilight nearly jumped out of her skin, her sword swinging wildly into the air. The weapon spun freely off the edge of the building, but rather than hearing the clang of metal on stone follow, she heard simply another voice.

"You really should be more careful with that thing, darling." Looking over the edge, she saw Rarity, holding her sword aloft, waiting for her to take it back.

"Okay then..." Twilight blinked, panting a little, and returning the sword to its scabbard. "So... what was that about? Where's Applejack taking Trixie?"

"Oh, we figured you might have been a little in over your head with Trixie, so we thought up a plan to help, well... soften her up a little for you." Rarity answered, a slightly malevolent smirk creeping in towards the end of her sentence.

"What do you mean by..." _Wait... Rainbow Dash and Applejack._ "... oh. Oh okay. Just... give her back in one piece. We kinda need her that way."

"Oh, don't worry, I'm sure they'll be as careful as ever..."

* * *

><p>"Eughh... wait... I'm alive! <em>The Great and Powerful Trixie is ali<em>-" _Doof_. Applejack dumped Trixie from her back in the middle of the small, dark alleyway. "Well, _that's_ no way to treat the Great and Powerful _hmph_!" Fed up with her blabbering, Applejack jammed a hoof in Trixie's mouth.

"If you dinn't like that, then you definitely ain't gonna like what's comin' up next." Applejack smirked gleefully. Trixie shied away, and started heading for the alley's opposite exit, only to be blocked when Rainbow Dash dropped in her path, forehooves crossed. "_Nope._"

"By the time we're through with you, the only thing they'll call you is '_loser'._" Dash taunted, starting to advance on her.

"What? I... no! I... _Help! _I need an adult!" Trixie shrieked hysterically. _Crunch._ A hoof connected with the side of her head. She spun around, and flopped on the ground at Applejack's feet. "Wh... why did you..."

"If that was me..." Applejack worked a hoof under Trixie's jaw and lifted her face up to eye level. "... you wouldn't be talkin' right now." Trixie was aghast; but only briefly, before she was struck again; the earth pony bringing her free hoof to connect with the other side of her head. The strike dislodged her from her perch, and she slumped to the ground, groaning.

* * *

><p>"Y'know, I just thought of something guys." Spike put out casually, sat comfortably atop Twilight's head. He and the other five ponies were waiting at street level. "Does it bother you, the way you've... y'know. Become more..." His statement was punctuated by a faint, guttural scream from the nearby alleyway. "...violent since this whole thing started?"<p>

"What? Oh, I..." Fluttershy lowered her head and blushed. "Sorry..."

"I don't think he means you, Fluttershy." Twilight chuckled, still mulling over his observation. "I suppose it should bother me... but I've been so focussed on the goal here. I've just been doing whatever it takes and not thinking too much about it."

"The story _did_ say Equestria used to be a violent and savage place." Rarity added, twirling her dagger in the air idly. "This might be a taste of the real world, in a way."

"Exactly." Twilight added. Mentally, she reassured herself; _the real world._ _The real Equestria._

"Hmm... I guess it just makes me wonder about what's gonna happen after this is over." Spike mused, gazing up at Canterlot in the distance, its spires and rooftops accented by moonlight.


	26. The Point of No Return

A/N: On to the home stretch after this. Riiiight after I do some more editing...

* * *

><p><em>Dhoof.<em>

Applejack and Rainbow Dash tossed a heavily bruised, groaning Trixie on the ground at Twilight's feet. Her cape in utter rags by now, and all three of them were caked in mud from the alley.

"Ah think we're done for now." Applejack smirked.

"For now." Dash chuckled, and the two of them bumped hooves.

"Ugh. I hope you didn't get carried away..." Twilight kneeled down to inspect Trixie's injuries. There was nothing obviously too severe; no large gashes, no open fractures, no horn damage. Plenty of bruises however, and she seemed to have a little trouble standing. Her hind right leg was particularly tender, and she was very reluctant to put weight on it. Twilight furrowed her brow, and pulled a book from her saddlebag. "Let's see... osteomancy, osteomancy... here we go." Everypony else watched silently, for reasons ranging from contempt to just plain confusion. "Variation of stone magic... no... _aha!_" Slapping the book closed, she lowered her head by the trembling Trixie's hindquarters, and both her horn and the sensitive leg lit up in a soft glow. To their audience, nothing was happening, but in Twilight's vision, Trixie's leg became translucent, and the profile of her bones showed up in soft white glow. Notably, the shin-bone was snapped in two about halfway along its length. _Yep... that's a break alright. Looks pretty clean though... maybe if I..._ She intensified her gaze, and the glow grew more intense. Slowly, the remaining bone started to shift viscously, and meld together again. _Careful... careful..._ She kept up her concentration, gradually fusing the two pieces together again. Once it looked okay, she stopped hastily. She wasn't sure if it would hold, but the alternative was much harder to deal with - if she kept the spell going for too long, or let off an accidental surge in energy, she could fuse all the leg bones together into a single, stiff central rod, rendering the leg useless, or worse still, turn the whole leg into pure bone.

"What... what's going on?" Trixie bleated, visibly terrified.

"There, your leg should be able to cope with regular use for the time being... now, about your other problem..." Twilight pulled open _Magic of the Body_ again, flipping first through the index, and then back through the rest of the volume. _Hmm, these are an interesting pair of spells. I'm definitely keeping this book._ She closed her eyes and lowered her head again, and her horn lit up. Again, it looked like nothing was happening... until Trixie started to grumble and lurch around, and after three deeply unpleasant seconds she collapsed the floor again, clutching her head in her hoof.

"What the _hay_ was that..." She rasped, her tone markedly more pained than it was a moment ago.

"That was a little thing the author of this book likes to call 'instant coffee'. It accelerates the metabolism of blood alcohol, so the target sobers up rapidly. Or, it can be stopped halfway through, leaving them in the peak of a hangover." Twilight smirked. She wasn't accustomed to this kind of callousness, and didn't intend to become so; however, she couldn't help but derive a trace of cruel satisfaction from this situation.

"Augh... what do you _want_ from me?" Trixie barked, trying to cover her head in snow to soothe the headache. It didn't matter if it made absolutely no sense; it was _something_. Twilight looked up to the roof of the adjacent building, and Trixie's sword slid from it. Twilight suspended it in mid-air between them.

"How much do you know?"

"What? About the sword?" Trixie narrowed her eyes. "Are you telling me you came all this way, chased me across the rooftops, beat the hayseeds out of me and gave me this _agonising_ headache because you want to know about a _sword?_"

"It goes deeper than that. You know as well as I do."

"Alright, if you absolutely _must_ know, and won't leave me alone until you do..." She sighed and rubbed her temples. "It was years ago, when I was a young filly. As you must have _somehow_ figured out, I grew up this grotty little mudhole called Hoofington. I always knew I had a thing for magic, but being all the way out here, I had to teach myself a lot of my magic, and I never got particularly far. Not much beyond smoke-and-mirrors, as you uh... might have guessed. I was about to give up on the whole thing and try my hoof at something else, when one day, I found this old box in the basement. I didn't know where it came from, and I certainly wasn't going to ask my father about it - the less said about him the better - and that's where I found this..." She pointed a hoof at the sword. "... and this..." She propped herself up on her forehooves and held out the small, stone trinket that pinned her cape around her neck. "... along with some old notes about their supposed former owner. It was somepony called... what was it... Bride... Brew... _Bree!_ Bree Hornblende. I can't remember many of the details about the story now, and I figured it was all a fairytale. But, it inspired me to give the magic another shot, which eventually led to my first show under the 'Great and Powerful' title, and, well, this." She smiled weakly and twisted her body a little, raising her flank ever so slightly. "Happy?"

"Hmm... well, Trixie, I have a little news for you then." Twilight lowered the sword to the ground, and pulled another book from her bag - a plain volume, embossed simply _The Birth of Celestia_. "That wasn't a fairytale."

"Wait, how do you... what? I..." Trixie stammered.

"Have you got somewhere warmer we can do this? This might take some time."

* * *

><p>"Luna?" A silky-smooth voice called from a hallway in the upper levels of the palace at Canterlot. A long, white horn prodded open a door to a darkened room. "There you are." The horn was followed by a graceful white nose, and the first locks of an immense, gracefully waving mane, coloured in all the hues of a sunrise - hosts of soft blue, green and pink. Inside, a second figure was slouched by the window, looking out over the city's skyline, the spires of the nearer buildings silhouetted against the moonlight reflecting on the snow in the distance. Partially obscured by one of the palace's buildings were the colourful lights of an airshow, the dull roar of which could be heard from the window.<p>

"Oh sister, you always know where to find me!" She chuckled in a mildly juvenile tone, turning away from the window. _Nearly always._

"Is everything alright, Luna?" The owner of the nose and horn pushed her way inside, and the door creaked open. The hallway's candle-light framed her in the doorway. "You've been cooped up in here all day."

"Oh, it's... nothing. I've just been tired is all." Luna rubbed her head affectionately against Celestia's side, only about shoulder height to the larger alicorn. Celestia smiled warmly and reciprocated, brushing her neck along Luna's mane.

"Alright. Rest well then." She smiled, and Luna scampered back to the window and curl up again. She stayed to watch her drift off, the movement of her chest outlined in the moonlight. After a few moments of silence, the door closed again, and Luna was alone in the darkened room once more. _Before this night is through, I'll rest quite well._

* * *

><p>Underneath a sky aglow with colours and contrails, four young fillies huddled together behind a bakery, trying to take advantage of the meagrest warmth from its extractor fan; respite from Canterlot's icy streets.<p>

"So cold..." Sweetie Belle whimpered.

"So tired..." Scootaloo yawned.

"So hungry..." Applebloom grumbled.

"Maybe we should go home..." Dinky moaned.

"If you wanna walk all the way back to Ponyville in _that_, be mah guest." Overhead, a bright orange flash lit up their shivering forms against the wall, nestled in the snow.

* * *

><p>"Ah, horsefeathers..." Rainbow Dash muttered under her breath, looking at the horizon. She was lagging a little behind the group, just a length or two behind Applejack, herself another length behind everypony else. Applejack was just about close enough to hear the murmur. She cocked an ear, looked over her shoulder, and slowed up a little.<p>

"Huh? What's wrong, sugarcube?"

"What? Oh, nothing." She put on her bravest smile. Applejack saw through it like a bad disguise.

"Aw now, you know better than to try 'n' lie to me." She chuckled, and hung back until they were walking together.

"Heh..." Dash's smile weakened, and then faded to a sigh. Lifting in to the air for a moment, she pointed a hoof at the horizon, where Canterlot was just about visible against the mountain. Upon closer inspection, some bright flashing lights and streaks could be made out over the city.

"What... I don't get it."

"The Wonderbolts were performing in Canterlot tonight. That's the end of their show right there." Dash grimaced.

"Oh... ah betcha were hopin' to get there before it ended?"

"Eeyup."

"Eh... sorry, ah guess..."

"Don't worry about it AJ, it's not your fault. It was a long shot anyway." Rainbow gazed bleakly at the last of the lights as they faded away. "It just woulda been nice."

"Y'know..." Applejack started, a little uneasily. She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts before proceeding. "... it's mighty brave of you to do what yer doin'. All horsin' around aside, ah... ah'm really gonna miss you." She sniffed, doing her best to keep her straight face.

"Don't... don't be like that. I know you're gonna miss me. Everypony's gonna miss me." Dash sighed, staring at the snow as she walked. "But... I don't regret anything. It's been a good life. Good adventures, good times..." Then, she cracked a faint but earnest smile, and looked back up to Applejack. "... good friends." The earth pony's lip quivered, contorting into the weak, reciprocating smile as their eyes met. "You can start crying now if you want." Applejack needed no further instruction; she thumped her forehead into Dash's shoulder, and proceeded to weep softly. Rainbow _whoofed_ a little at the hefty shove, and tenderly lay her wing over her sobbing friend. _Good friends._

* * *

><p>Up ahead, Trixie continued to pace around Twilight uneasily. Spike slept soundly on Twilight's back.<p>

"Have I told you recently how _insane_ this is? I'm not sure I've made this quite clear to you. We're still heading to Canterlot, so you probably haven't grasped just how _crazy_ what we're doing is!"

"If you want me to undo that hangover relief spell, you're going the right way about it." Twilight grumbled. Trixie sighed, and tried to keep herself calm.

"Okay then, just level something with me." She paused, trying to articulate the tumultuous thoughts in her head. In the end, all that came out was a single, exasperated word: "_Why?_"

"Isn't it obvious?" Twilight replied bluntly, still looking dead ahead. "Equestria is in chains. I thought we'd been over this."

"Well, to run with your metaphor, they're pretty plush, comfy chains." Trixie looked over at the other unicorn. Twilight just kept walking. "Look, let me put it this way. Right now, you have just about everything you could ever want in life. Equestria today is safe, comfortable... safe... and what you're doing is 'liberating' us to this harsh, violent place where we're constantly under attack from all kinds of monsters! And you're not just content to go there by yourself, no! You have to drag _everypony_ along with you into this! And _then, _to top it all off, you have to banish Princess Celestia - _the_ Princess Celestia - to another plane in order to do it! _Have you lost your mind?_"

"Everything except truth." Twilight retorted grimly. "Not that you'd know about that."

"But... _banishing Celestia._ Has this at any point registered as 'drop-dead, horseshoes-on-head _crazy_' with you?"

"Look, I'm trying my best to stay rational about this, I don't need you bringing sentimentality into this!" Twilight snapped. After a few moments of shy silence, Trixie continued;

"... who said anything about sentimentality?"

"Huh... I guess I'm getting a little absorbed in my own thoughts again." Twilight chuckled, forcing a light tone to her voice.

"But that just raises further questions! What could _possibly_ be rational about this undertaking?"

"Hey. We're trying to do the _right_ thing here. It's not easy and it won't be easy to live with, but dammit Trixie, it's the _right_ thing to do." Twilight huffed and turned away from Trixie, moving about a length or so ahead of the rest of the pack.

Fluttershy had overheard bits and pieces of this scattered explanation, hovering (with considerable effort) above them throughout. When Twilight broke away, she swooped in and kept march alongside her.

"What's wrong, Twilight?" She whispered, leaning in close. "I can tell something is."

"It's... it's fi-" The unicorn caught Fluttershy's incredulous expression out of the corner of her eye. She was only kidding herself. "It's not fine..." She sighed, and spent a few seconds putting some words to her feelings. She'd rather be quick about this; before long, Trixie would start pestering her again with the same questions. "To be brief... it's about Celestia. I've been so close to her for most of my life, and then this comes up... my whole worldview is just gone. I'm not sure what to believe in anymore. I'm just going by a few vague morals and the seat of my saddle here." She sighed, gazing bleakly at the path ahead. "Celestia's been like a mother to me, and to learn she's been deceiving us all... I feel betrayed, I feel lied to, I feel..."

"Twilight..." another voice called from the opposite side to Fluttershy. "Have I told you today how crazy your idea is?" _Absolutely typical._

"You know what, Trixie? Adventure_._ Mother-bucking _adventure._ There's your reason. You get to put your name on a story saying 'I helped free Equestria!', and you don't have to make it up. _Happy?_" Twilight snarled. Trixie was slightly taken aback, but flattered enough by the idea not to be offended. Fluttershy sighed and frowned at the ground. It wasn't much of a vent, but it at least it was a vent.

_Urp._ Without warning, Spike made a guttural noise from his stomach. He jumped awake, clutching Twilight's back. In the mightiest of adorable little bodily noises, he emitted a hearty burp, shooting a small jet of flame from his mouth, accompanied by a scroll. He burbled a little, and immediately settled back down to sleep. With a raised eyebrow, Twilight plucked the scroll from the snow and unfurled it, reading it in her head as she walked. As she reached the bottom, a wry smile spread across her face.

"It's from Luna."


	27. Sacrifice

The moon sat high in the sky by the time they reached Canterlot. From atop the same grove as last night, the city looked much the same; spires dotted the skyline, and everywhere was bathed in the soft white of moonlight reflected on snow. Nothing about it had really changed, except what they were looking for.

Derpy Hooves immediately started toward the city gates, only for Twilight to put a hoof to her neck to stop her.

"Wait."

"What?"

"We're not going after the Crusaders yet." Twilight was cool and calm in her instruction; she looked dead ahead.

"_What._" Derpy balked, furrowing her brow.

"Risk management. If we find them before we meet up with Luna, they'll be a liability, and if it goes wrong, they get caught up in whatever happens to us." Twilight frowned. "Besides, at night, in a city this size, it'll be nearly impossible to find them."

"Hmm..." Derpy gazed worriedly at the spires and rooftops in the distance. "... alright." Reluctantly, she fell in line with the other ponies as they started down the hill to the storm drains.

As they neared the open gash in the cliff face, something made itself quite apparent - some fetid odour in the air, intensifying as they grew closer. First, Twilight got a whiff, and gagged. Then, one by one, everypony displayed similar reactions. When it reached Rainbow Dash at the back, she screwed up her face, and went slightly shifty-eyed.

"_Ugh,_ what in tarnation?" Applejack barked, keeping her distance from the open tunnel.

"There must have been some..." Twilight coughed. "... some kind of leak in the sewers since last night. Frost damage, maybe."

"Actually..." Dash gulped. Everypony quickly turned to face her.

"Rainbow, what did you do..." Rarity spoke through a handkerchief.

"Well, on our way out last time... I _kinda_ forgot to put the ponyhole cover back on." Her ears went flat, and her wings hung limply at her sides.

"Gah... no matter. Until we get to the sewer, the gas concentration shouldn't be toxic. Just unpleasant..." Twilight grumbled, leading the party on into the drains.

* * *

><p>On the roof of a hotel in the city, a single pegasus sat watching the moonlight reverently. She wiped the sweat of exertion from her brow, her lithe body still brimming with adrenaline. She wasn't quite sure what it was, but she couldn't shake this gut feeling she had about this night. She couldn't quite put her hoof on what it was, but something about this night was particularly auspicious.<p>

* * *

><p>While not especially familiar with the route, it was still relatively fresh in their minds. Added to this, with an extra pegasus on board, they had no problems ferrying Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Trixie straight to the top. Twilight, with the dual benefits of knowing the way and not needing to conserve energy, saved them the effort by winking up with Spike.<p>

Gagging and coughing, the party struggled through the narrow ladder-space and across the sewers. Again, with the benefit of foreknowledge, they could form a single, continuous convoy instead of travelling in pairs, streamlining the process. Rarity made a point to pull over the hole cover before they moved on.

Ahead, the old palace was lit up the exact same way as last night; faint torchlight emanating from the gaps in the crumbling walls. It was as much an indicator as a beacon; they were reassured that their liaison in the palace was holding up her end. One by one, they filed through the old window, and shuffled into the rubble-strewn hall. Pinkie Pie, her mane still hanging straight down her face, stuck close behind Rainbow Dash as they entered, occasionally nosing at her flank or shoulder when she could keep up. The pegasus kept a stoic reserve; she knew her time was short, and for her friends, she kept a brave face.

Sitting quietly in the clearing, reading by torchlight, a slate blue pony raised her head when she heard the soft clopping of hooves on stone.

"Twilight." she spoke softly as the unicorn stepped in from the shadows.

"We got your letter. We were about twelve miles south of Canterlot at the time. I..."

"Sh." Luna raised a hoof to Twilight, and closed her book. "Then you know the plan?"

"Mm." Twilight nodded somberly, and turned a little to the side. Taking her cue, Rainbow Dash stepped forward, breathing deeply. Pinkie went to reach a hoof to her, only for Applejack to hold her back, sniffing back a tear. _Well, this is it. This is where I get off._

"I'm re_ah_..." Dash spoke, though the frog in her throat made her cough and try again. "I'm ready." Luna tilted her head quizzically.

"I'm sorry, what were you doing again?" The alicorn blinked innocuously.

"Uhm... the sacrifice. Wasn't this in the plan?" Rainbow wasn't sure whether to be offended or relieved.

"The pl-oh, heavens, there seems to have been some misunderstanding." Luna chuckled, sitting up. Her cheery demeanour brought a sick feeling to Twilight's stomach. "I mustn't have been clear in my instructions. I'm the sacrifice."

"Well, there were a fe-_what?_" Twilight swallowed. "That wasn't in the letter at all!"

"Wait, why are you _happy_ about this? I was ready to throw down my life just now and you're just going to happily step in and take my place?" Dash boggled. _Wait, why are you questioning this, Dash?_ Luna giggled and wiped her eye.

"It's simple. You are young, full of potential, you have a whole lifetime ahead of you. I..." She sighed and looked up at nothing in particular. "I am long past my time. I am a slave, marooned in the future. Everypony I truly knew is gone. For centuries all I have been able to do is stew in my guilt. I... I have lived long enough." She looked down and smiled at Rainbow. "Your sacrifice is indeed valiant, Rainbow Dash, but tonight, at least, it is not necessary."

"But-" Luna raised a hoof to Twilight as she spoke.

"Before you argue rationality, Twilight, I have another piece to speak. The ritual's strength grows with the strength of the sacrifice, correct?" Luna's tone got noticeably flatter and more business-like. Twilight nodded. "Not to demean your friend here, but a thousand year old alicorn is just a touch more powerful than a twenty-something year old pegasus. Just saying."

"_Hey!_" Dash complained. Offended or relieved? Still too hard to tell.

"And you're going to need all the power you can get."

"You've... got me there..." Twilight conceded. Pinkie Pie jumped on Dash's back and hugged her tightly. The pegasus let out a deep, wavering sigh of relief.

"Now let's hurry up and get started, Celestia could be down here any minute!"

"Actually..." Twilight smirked. "We've got plenty of time. Among the things I found in my studies..." She pulled _Diaries of a Planeswalker_ from her saddlebag, and flipped through a few pages while she talked. "... was a description of how Djinn magic works. Djinn usually only have access to a set of basic but broad spells, so in order to achieve complex and precise effects, they layer them. While this is an effective way of performing advanced magic with simple components, it produces a lot of side effects. The pony who wrote this diary exploited those to get away from a Djinn and escape their plane. " She snapped the book shut, and returned it to her saddlebag. "Now, the 'how' is quite complicated, but to cut a long story short, I've been able to work out at least _some_ of the side effects from observation and the planeswalker's notes. They include the Elements of Harmony, the artifacts, and something I like to call an arcanonegative cage, on this hall."

Silence.

"A what now?" Applejack spoke up.

"It's a type of enchantment placed on large, enclosing structures like caves and buildings, which neutralises most magic flowing in and out. Spells can still take place inside the cage, but they can't leave. Since this enchantment is a thousand years old now, it's starting to fade, and more powerful spells can breach it, but it's still enough to cancel most everyday magic that tries to cross it. Which, as you might have noticed, Luna, includes any spells Celestia uses to try and find you, which is why she can't see you down here."

"Ahh..." Luna nodded.

"This layering also explains why the Elements of Harmony exist in the first place, since I don't see why Celestia would intentionally create magical artifacts that would ultimately lead to her demise."

"Alright." Luna sighed, and looked around the room anxiously. "Still, there's no point hanging around. Those rituals are complex."

"Right."

* * *

><p>In a dark hotel room, lit only by the moonlight coming through the window, a pegasus trawled through a small travel case. Clothes, sunglasses, empty bottles tossed aside. A few travel papers, whisked through the air, landing in a crumpled heap on the bed. Behind a zipped pocket at the back of the bag, a book. An old, tattered book, barely readable anymore. An heirloom, transcribed through generations to preserve the information on the decaying paper, the language updated with the times, becoming more abridged and laconic with each iteration.<p>

But the salient points remain the same.

_Tonight I have seen the most wondrous thing. Without warning, the black sky lit up in every colour of the rainbow, a terrific explosion ripped through the quiet night air, and a streak of multicoloured light shot overhead. Soon after, a single blue feather drifted into my hands from the sky._

_Never before have I seen so much potential in the wings of a pegasus._

* * *

><p>Two sets of beating hooves and a pair of flapping wings tore across the palace's pristine tiled floors and white marble walls, their paths weaving in and out of each other as they went. Every so often, a startled passer-by would squeal and duck for cover as a pony rushed past them.<p>

It wasn't long before more joined the chase - royal guards pursuing the disruptive interlopers. Into a side corridor, out of a side corridor, across an archway, looping around to surprise their pursuers from behind...

The three ponies burst into the drawing room, where the Princess was quietly reading by the fire. A blast of wind and a rainbow trail whipped past, knocking a few books off the shelves and throwing paper everywhere, only to disappear out the far door as quickly as it had arrived. A second pony rushed past soon after, leaping over the fallen books. All she could really make out of her was a hat and a yellow tail vanishing around the corner of the doorway. Celestia looked up, nonplussed. After the same interval again, she was stunned by a light _bonk_ to the side of her head, and a simple message;

"Tip! _You're it!_" As quickly as she had arrived, the bright pink messenger disappeared with the other two. A moment later, two royal guards barged into the room.

"Princess! Are you alright?" One blurted out, watching the tall white alicorn rise to her hooves.

"Never better!" She chuckled, rearing up with a playful smirk. "Don't worry, I know these ones." She winked to the bamboozled guards, and galloped out the door. They exchanged puzzled looks, and shrugged. "Ready or not, here I come!" What was the worst that could happen?

Down the hall, the three ponies split up, taking different routes down different flights of stairs. Celestia could easily apprehend all of them at a moments' notice, but in the interests of good sport, she pursued on their terms; on hoof. She was never far behind them - she knew these halls inside out after all - but they were all just too _quick._ Gradually, the chase entered the deeper portions of the castle, through cellars and storage tunnels, perfect marble surfaces giving way to rough, aged cobblestone, the air slowly getting danker and mustier...

The three of them converged on a narrow spiral staircase, set into a stone wall, and filed through in an orderly (if rapid) fashion.

"I've got you now!" She called, charging after them. As soon as she squeezed into the passageway, a terrible gut feeling hit her. A very particular gut feeling, one that she hadn't felt in a long time... Shaking her head, she dismissed it as nothing, and carried on down the steps. _Slam_. She heard a heavy door up ahead of her close. A second later, it came into view, and she charged it with all her might, banging into it and flinging it off its hinges. She skidded to a halt in a dark room. "Aha... uh?"

_Fzhew._

A small lilac light shot from a point in the centre of the hall, and dropped on the floor a few lengths away. A small circle with a few geometric patterns on it lit up in purple flames, and the room's few open surfaces - the doorway, and a hole between some rocks at the far end of the hall - glazed over with a translucent, fuchsia barrier.

"Good evening, Princess."


	28. The Darkest Hour

"Oh, uhm... Twilight..." Princess Celestia looked around, bewildered as much as anything else. "What are you doing here?"

"You know what's coming, Celestia. And you have for a long time." Twilight took a step forward, conviction dripping from every word she spoke.

"I... I don't understand, what's going..." The alicorn backed into the doorway again, only for her flank to press against the translucent purple haze across it, forming a solid barrier. "... on?"

"Don't play dumb with me." With every step Celestia took back, Twilight took one forward. "Your time is up."

"She is just milking this for all it's worth, isn't she?" Rarity whispered to Applejack beside her.

"Twilight, what are you doing..." Confusion faded to concern on Celestia's face. Twilight's horn lit up a second time, shooting another small lilac fireball from the tip. The flame danced through the air and drifted to the floor. It lit up a second circle around the first in a similar purple flame, and the fire faded to blue. Faint white and orange glowing wisps of light started to seep from Celestia's body, being drawn into the air above the blue ring of fire, and circled it like a miniature cyclone. The alicorn's knees buckled, and she began to grunt and struggle.

"Isn't it obvious? It's a power drain." Twilight smirked, unerring in her certainty. Celestia grimaced, dropping on to her belly. Fighting through a pained expression, she could only whisper back;

"... _why?_" She stammered, batting a hoof on the floor towards her unsympathetic assailant. "Why are you... _ngh_... why are you doing this to me, Twilight?" Twilight just raised her nose a little, staring down it at the limp, flailing Princess. "_What did I do?_" Twilight ignored her. _Keep it together, Twilight. They're just crocodile tears. Nothing to worry about..._

Behind her, a few doubtful murmurs circulated among her party. Applejack whispered something to Rainbow Dash, and they both nodded with uncertain looks. Trixie was just transfixed with horror. Fluttershy cowered behind Pinkie Pie.

The ethereal clouds of light circling the blue flames maintained a constant thickness, energy disappearing into the centre and vanishing as quickly as more joined the top. Celestia whimpered, her face flattening against the floor, her voice sinking to a mere croak, barely audible above the soft swirling of the energy seeping from her body. "I have shown you nothing but love and kindness, Twi... Twilight... and this... this is how you repay me? _Have you lost your mind?_" She coughed.

"Your facade isn't fooling anypony, Celestia. If that even _is_ your name." Twilight growled. Applejack and Rainbow Dash looked at each other again, and nodded. Subtly, quietly, they pushed their way out of the small crowd, delicately creeping up behind Twilight. "We know the truth. We know what you've been hiding." She leaned down, oblivious to the two ponies sneaking up on her. "We know the _whole_ story. And the best part?" They got into a formation behind her, keeping just out of her peripheral vision, Dash preparing to grab high, Applejack to grab low. The clueless Twilight smirked, and lowered her body down to Celestia's level, their faces inches apart. "We know how it ends, _Djinn._"

Lines of thought tumbled over each other in Celestia's mind. There was no telling what they were; but the cascade of realisations were obvious from her face. The pronounced pain drained from her expression, her eyes opened wide, her pupils like pin-pricks. Little by little, her brow began to furrow, and the eyes themselves began to change; a tiny glow in the middle of the eyeball started to grow, quickly enveloping the whole eye, and swirled and flicker like a flame. Her lip pulled back in a snarl and a huff. _That's it, come on out._

"_You will pay dearly for your insolence!_" A deep, guttural, rumbling voice cried out from the floored alicorn. Rainbow Dash and Applejack were caught off guard. The three of them backed up promptly, and a little vindicated smirk spread across Twilight's face. The two ponies behind her shared startled looks and a shrug. Celestia floated up from the floor with a few long, sweeping beats of her wings, the flames in her eyes spreading across her body; the soft, pastel hues of her mane and tail lit up with orange fire, and her body's smooth white began to smoulder and crackle into a mosaic of hot whites, yellows and reds.

"Not as bright as you remember?" Twilight taunted. "Why aren't we blind yet, I hear you wonder." Celestia - if she could even still be called that - examined her changing body with growing confusion. "You've been out of your own plane for too long, Djinn. Your connection to your original form has faded. Your magic is weak here. Your body can't tap this plane's arcane energy."

"_Then maybe I should send you all somewhere I do have power!_" The demon bellowed. An ethereal, orange mist seeped out from her body and rapidly encircled the ponies on the ground, constricting their bodies, inhibiting their motion. It scalded to the touch, like boiling water washing over them, and as much as they thrashed about against the searing pain, it was inescapable. With all seven in her grasp, she lifted them into the air, watching them all groan in agony. All, except one. "_What are you smiling about?_" It barked at Twilight. The unicorn smirked knowingly, even in the face of imminent doom.

"See for yourself." Twilight and her leer faded with a shimmer, replaced with a completely different pony - a grey, yellow-maned pegasus, eyes slightly askew. Celestia blinked incredulously. The substitute in her grip just gave her a goofy, innocent grin.

"_Wha-!_" The djinn's exclamation of disbelief was interrupted by a loud _crack_. The demon and her captives dropped to the floor with a series of _thumps_, followed by the clattering of horn fragments across the stone floor. Overhead, an old, burnt sword, held aloft with a lilac glow, swung around and returned to its owner; a similarly coloured unicorn, with a long, deliberate gash on her front leg, fading into view with another distorted shimmer. _I'll have to thank Rarity for that one later._

"You're getting slower, too." Incensed, Celestia turned and staggered to her hooves. She barrelled clumsily towards Twilight, only to meet a wall of dirt when her target winked out, reappearing behind her. Twilight dug her hooves in and concentrated, generating a small magical cage around the stunned demon. It thrashed and flailed around inside, bending and stretching it, but in its weakened state, it ultimately failed to break free. With every ounce of Twilight's focus kept on containing the beast, Luna stepped forth from hiding - concealed with a similar spell - to start dragging the cage across the floor.

"_You!_" Celestia lashed a hoof in the direction of the other alicorn. "_This was your idea! Your plan, wasn't it?_"

"What can I say, _'sis'_? You gave me a long time to think." Luna chuckled. The demon just screeched and pounded against the translucent purple walls of its prison. Rarity helped guide the sphere to the ground in the centre of the hall, where most of the rubble had been cleared away.

"_Trixie!_ Start the ritual!" She yelled. Trixie yanked the stone ornament from her cape, the tattered garment whipping off her back, discarded. She tossed it on the ground next to Celestia, and prepared her sword, untangling the hempen wrappings around the blade.

"_The Elements! Impossible!_"

"Oh, the Elements of Harmony are here alright. And they're _pissed off._" Rainbow Dash jeered, squatting down to look the demon in its flaming eyes, showing off a leg wound similar to Twilight's. Applejack yanked her away by the tail just in time to avoid a hoof, swung at her, bowing the side of the cage outwards.

"Now where'd you learn language like that, sugarcube?"

Trixie began to hyperventilate a little as she reached the end of the blade, pulling the last few folds of hemp bandage away. She looked for a brief moment at her reflection. It was a little dulled, but still clear enough to make out the vexation on the face staring back at her. She tore her eyes away, and turned to Luna. The alicorn was facing away from the fray, flipping through the last pages of a book. Once ready, she snapped it shut, and turned to face Trixie. Silently, calmly, even casually, she lifted off her crown, her neck ornament and her horseshoes, and set them aside. She laid her book on the floor, and nudged it over to her jewels with a hoof. She could tell from Trixie's wild eyes and deep panting that the sword hanging in the air wasn't going to come any closer by itself. She stepped forward, pulling the edge of the sword to her neck, but no closer. Her face mere inches from Trixie's, she whispered, barely discernible above the din behind them;

"Cry not for me. This is the least I could do." Her voice was ice-cool and soothing to the panicking unicorn. Trixie clenched her eyes shut, took three more deep breaths, and concentrated.

_Schling._

Her ears were filled with sickening, wet tearing sound, inaudible to anypony but her.

_Thump._

Luna crumpled, first her knees giving way, and with one side losing support quicker than the other, she collapsed to her side, lifeless. The clatter of metal on stone quickly followed. Trixie stood aghast, horrified by her own work.

"Quit yer stallin'!" Applejack shoved her to bring her back to reality. "Twilight can't hold on much longer!" Behind her, Twilight was laid on the floor, struggling to keep Celestia contained, even with Rarity's help.

"This isn't happening, this isn't happening, _this isn't happening!_" Trixie backed away from the body as blood began to seep out, pooling between the cobblestones. Rainbow Dash jumped in and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her firmly.

"_Keep it together_, Trixie! This is no time to freak out on us!" Dash held her hooves pressed to her sides until she stopped trying to struggle away. "It's too late to back out! _Stick to the plan!_" With a reluctant, tearful nod, Trixie started towards the growing puddle of blood.

"Okay... stick to the plan... stick to the plan..." She chanted to herself, as she set about the messy business of tracing shapes with the fresh blood. Steam rose from the viscous red fluid as she levitated a few small blobs at a time through the air, sticky threads hanging between them. She fought to keep her nausea under control as she guided the fluid into the required shape. She paused every so often to consult Twilight's book, and lower some to the ground.

"Some time today would be good!" Dash yelled. Applejack thumped her side.

_Fshew._

The alien noise cut through the dull thumping of hooves on stone, drawing everypony's attention to the centre of the room. The last few ethereal wafers of Twilight's cage filtered away, and Celestia screeched, stretching out once more. With most of her conscious magic drained to another plane or dissipated with her shattered horn, she was limited to strictly physical offence, and even her wings were useless; however, this did not make her a weak opponent. Her body still brimmed with innate, arcane energies, her coat the texture of hot coals. Twilight lay on her stomach on the floor a few lengths away, panting. Celestia reared up, releasing what can only be described as the most infernal approximation of a whinny ever to fall upon pony ears, and charged towards the fallen unicorn. Rainbow Dash didn't need another hint.

_Thump._

With less than a length to spare, close enough to feel the simmering heat radiating from the demon's body, Dash scooped Twilight out of Celestia's path, and the two rolled off to the side.

_Clatter._

Celestia's momentum carried her onwards into the remains of the altar. She stumbled and wiped out, flailing her hooves around clumsily as she tried to right herself.

"Applejack! You cover Trixie!" Dash barked, helping the groaning Twilight to her hooves. "The rest of you, you're with me. We're takin' her down the old fashioned way!" She couldn't help but smirk; regardless of the gravity of the situation, of the stakes of failure, this was _intense._

"What? N-" was all Twilight could manage, before Rainbow leapt headlong toward Celestia's flailing body, delivering a firm double-hoofed kick to her head. _Oww, hot hot hot!_ She whipped around in the air, somersaulting to try and wash some cold air over her singed hooves. However, it did have the desired effect; the blow knocked the djinn to the floor again, scuppering her recovery. Twilight watched and postulated. _It's... plausible. In a weakened state like this, she might be vulnerable to physical attack._

"Well what are we waiting for, girls?" Pinkie chuckled. "_Hiyaaa!_" She galloped across the hall, dancing over the burning patterns on the floor, and initiating a similar lunge. She winced when her hoof made contact with Celestia's side, and flipped away deftly. Fluttershy and Derpy Hooves skirted around the edges of the fray, reluctant to make physical contact. Rarity danced in front of the demon, swinging her dagger around and teasing it with illusions. Spike stuck close to Twilight, helping her recover.

"How we doin' back there?" Applejack called back to Trixie, faithfully standing her ground.

"G-... g-g-g... getting there..." Trixie stammered, drop by drop tracing out the pattern.

"Well hurry it up, we ain't got all night!"

Twilight looked over to the centre of the hall, the pattern slowly taking shape. Some ash lay on the floor where Celestia had been struggling. _Now how are we going to keep her there long enough..._ Experimentally, she whipped her sword out, and swung it around. Spike fell backwards.

"Watch where you're swinging that thing!" He yelped. _Hmm..._

"_Gangway!_" She called, and hurled the sword through the air like a spear towards Celestia. Amidst the constant peppering, she was still having trouble recovering. Rainbow Dash _eeped_ and ducked out of the way, narrowly avoiding the twirling blade. Celestia emitted another ear-piercing shriek when the weapon connected with her body, the indestructible blade penetrating her molten flesh like a watermelon. Rather than leaving her this way, Twilight telekinetically yanked it back out. The blade was fine; the white-hot blobs of Princess rolled off it casually, and solidified into stone on the floor. _That's it!_

She galloped into the clearing at the far end of the hall.

"Uhh, Twi, what the hay d'you think yer doin'?" Applejack blurted.

"_C'mere, you pathetic excuse for a fire demon!_" Twilight screamed, making every effort to catch Celestia's attention.

"Twilight, are you _crazy?_" Pinkie yelped, half-way through an oddly acrobatic rebound kick.

"You want a piece of this?" The unicorn laughed. One-by-one, the other ponies worked out her angle; she just hoped Celestia would be too blinded with rage to figure it out. Their barrage of blows ceased, and Celestia scrambled to her hooves, more infuriated than ever.

"_You will burn for all eternity!_" She screeched, and delved straight into a hasty charge. Twilight confidently met her charge, adjusting her pace so as to meet her at roughly the middle of the hall, where Trixie was shakily tracing out the last parts of the symbol. Hooves thundered on cobblestone, and neither showed any signs of letting up. With every fraction of a second, the gap closed. Their eyes locked together, exchanging expressions, one incensed, the other devious.

_Fshwing._

Celestia skidded to a sudden halt. Her opponent had just... disappeared. Vanished in a flash, right before her eyes.

_Fshwsh._

Reappearing just behind the djinn, Twilight couldn't help but chuckle. _I can't believe that worked twice!_ Not wasting any more time, she grabbed her sword and positioned it in the air above Celestia, blade pointed down.

"Hey!" She yelled, grabbing the snarling demon's attention. "_Boo._" With just that whisper, she drove the sword straight down, first planting it in the back of Celestia's neck. The momentum carried the tip of the blade out the other side, and the handguard jerked her whole body down. Finally, the blade wedged itself firmly between two stones, fixing her in place.

"_What? No!_" Down to the last of her strength, Celestia thrashed and strained against the indestructible weapon, to no avail.

"Spike..." Twilight called, a wry smile creeping across her face. The baby dragon snapped to attention and scurried over to her side. "... take a letter."

"Right away!" He chuckled, pulling up an imaginary scroll and quill. Trixie was still finishing the pattern. Everypony else was transfixed, unsure whether to scream or burst out laughing.

"_This is madness!_"

"Dear Princess Celestia," Twilight began dictating. Spike diligently scribbled on the phantom piece of paper, struggling to contain his grin. "Today I learned that you are in fact a demon from another dimension. That you deceived me, my nation, and my friends, and have been for a very long time. Fortunately, I also learned the way to fight back against you, and together, me and my friends rose to the task, and as I speak, we are just about to send you back where you came from. I hope the weather is nice in the plane of fire! Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle." As she finished the dictation, a mortified Trixie gave her a nod.

"_No!_" Celestia continued to flail and kick against the ground.

"I... think you'd better send it, Spike." Twilight smiled to the dragon.

"With pleasure!" He beamed. He rolled up the imaginary scroll, held out two fingers as if preparing to send it and took a deep breath.

"_No! No!_" Everypony took a couple of steps back, when instead of exhaling into his claws, he leaned over and spat a thin, green flame at the ground, igniting the trail of blood. "_Nooooagghhh!_" The flame spread quickly across the pattern, the green fading rapidly to white. Celestia's cries of protest descended into incoherent screaming, as the floor contained within the circle of stone began to emit an intense beam of light.

_Thump._

"Uhm... Twilight?" Spike blinked. The unicorn had collapsed next to him. He took a brief look around; all of the ponies had just dropped to the floor. "Guys?"


	29. Chain Reaction

A throbbing, pulsing headache was the first thing to greet Twilight as she returned to consciousness. One side of her body was cold and a little numb from the hard stone she was laying on. She tried to groan, and the strained croak that emerged belied her sore throat. Slowly, things began to register with her other senses; she could pick out the vague shapes of rocks and ash in the half-light, and some big, purple blur dancing around in the middle of her field of view. It seemed to muffle some indiscernible noises. She raised an eyebrow.

"... huh?" She blinked, trying to clear her vision some more.

"...ght! _Twilight!_" As soon as she could pick out the words, everything snapped into focus. Spike was jumping up and down in front of her face, trying to get her attention. They were still in the underground hall. The only light came from a burning torch mounted on the wall.

"_Ah!_ Spike!" She clumsily pushed herself up from the ground to sit.

"Twilight! You're okay!"

"What... what happened? The last I remember was the lights... and the sword..."

"As soon as the ritual started, you guys all blacked out! I was so worried!"

"Hm. That's odd... everyone except you?" She asked. Spike nodded. "Hmm... that's real weird..."

"Y'know what else is real weird? I... think you should get a look at yourself." He blushed a little, grabbing his tail and twisting it in his claws.

"Huh? Uhm... okay." Twilight closed her eyes, and tried her best to dispel the headache. _Let's see, mirror spell, mirror spell..._ With just a soft twinkling, she summoned a small, ethereal window, through which she could see an exact mirror image of herself. _Huh. Everything seems normal. Horn's the same size, I'm still the same colour, mane hasn't changed, there's my face... hah, I could really use a wash... arms are still there..._ She blinked again, and performed a double take at the image. _Wait a second. Arms?_ She lifted the appendages that used to be her front legs, to find them rotating in a way completely alien to her. Her proprioception went wild, and she fell over backwards with a squeak. The mirror dissipated, and she awkwardly pulled herself back up to a sitting position. "When... when did this happen?" She gibbered, examining her new body intently.

"It was while you were out, this weird light appeared, so I couldn't see what was going on, and then when the light went away, well..."

"Then... it worked..." She started to pant a little. "It... actually worked..."

"Uh... what worked?" Spike tilted his head.

"_It worked!_" Shouting joyously, Twilight leapt into the air, jumping to her hooves and pumping a fist up high.

"And I thought I was short before..." Spike muttered. Only then did Twilight notice that she was in fact, standing up straight, on two hooves. Spike stood up to about her knees. She wobbled a little, but it didn't take her long to adjust.

"This must be what the ancient ponies looked like!" She grinned and examined the form of her body more closely. Her pelvic structure was radically different, with a much wider range of movement at the hip. Her torso was much flatter than before; her ribcage was shallow enough that she could see the tips of her hind hooves without craning her neck forward. Two squishy mounds on her chest framed the view, each one about the size of a large apple; she had no idea what those were for. The appendages that replaced her front legs were longer, slenderer, and tapered into these unusual structures - looking something like Spike's claws, but chunkier, fleshier... like bony spiders. She rolled the fingers in her palm, flexing each one individually. "And these must be the 'hands' the story was talking about!" She chuckled, experimentally touching her opposed thumb to the tips of each finger.

"You still haven't told me what 'worked', Twilight!"

"Oh! The ritual, of course! The book said that if it was powerful enough, it should remove the magic of the target! The curse is lifted! Equestria is _free!_" She couldn't help but bounce excitedly. However, now that she was awake and standing, she was now fully aware of another fact. "... I'm cold." She clamped her arms to her chest and shivered.

"Agh, Twilight, you big wuss..." A voice muttered from the floor. Twilight looked around the hall for the first time. Everypony else was still unconscious, and more importantly, appeared to show the same bodily changes that she did. One of the figures was stirring and pushing herself up from the floor.

"Rainbow Dash? Are you okay?"

"A little woozy, but noth_UAH!_" As soon as Dash opened her eyes and caught a glimpse of Twilight, she jumped in fright, scrambling upright. In the flurry of movement, she noticed the new configuration of her own body, and squeaked again. "_Ah!_ What... what happened?"

"Aha. That would be an effect of the ritual." Twilight smiled. Dash looked at her, slack-jawed. "It wiped away all traces of Celestia's magic, so, everything's back to the way it was before." Dash continued to stare, her wings rising a little. They were slightly larger than before; though Twilight couldn't see the full wingspan, the carpal joint peaked at Dash's neck, and the tip extended to her thigh. "Rainbow, are you..."

"Oh! I, uh, uhm... no!" The pegasus blushed, and shimmied away, forcibly tucking her wings back down. She flailed her arms a little, and then pressed them to her chest in an odd fashion; one across her chest, along the 'squishy mounds' Twilight had observed earlier, and the other between her legs. She was blushing fiercely.

"Why are you..."

"Nothing!" Dash yelped. Twilight raised an eyebrow. Perplexed, she examined her own body again to see just what Rainbow Dash was hidi-

"... _oh._" Twilight gulped, and began to blush also. "Well, Rarity should do pretty well out of this..."

* * *

><p>Over the next few minutes, everypony started to wake up, each one swiftly adjusting to their bipedal habit. Each, except one.<p>

Derpy Hooves took it well mentally; she wasn't startled when she saw the alien forms everypony had taken, and she was more than eager to try her hand at it. However, when she struggled on to her hooves, she took a few wobbly steps forward, and promptly fell. She would have fallen flat on her face if Applejack hadn't caught her. Physically, she was in the same boat as everyone else: front legs replaced with arms and hands, bone structures shifted around so that her body could stably stand upright. But something was missing.

"_Eah!_" She yelped, as she tumbled to the ground for the third time, scuffing her shoulder.

"Hmm... something's not right here." Twilight rubbed her chin.

"You're telling me..." Derpy grunted.

"You're probably having trouble getting to grips with your new legs. Can you still fly?"

"Let me check..." The mailmare winced as she flapped her wings out, preparing to hit the ground again. To her relief, she hovered in mid-air, wings beating away. "... _yes!_"

"Makes sense, the wings didn't change that much..." She started to pace, deep in thought. _Some kind of muscle memory issue..._ Her train of thought was interrupted by a rapid _whoosh._ Rainbow Dash was idly twirling her spear around in her hand. Twilight shook her head and tried to concentrate. _Hmm... could something have gone wrong? Maybe the glass eye threw something off..._ _Whoosh._ "Rainbow Dash will you _quit it?_ I'm trying to thi-" In the middle of her sentence, watching Dash dexterously rotate the spear shaft on her fingers, an idea struck. "... where did you learn to do that?"

"I dunno." Dash shrugged. "I just..." She clamped the shaft in her hand, stopping it. "... know."

"That's... really strange..." _I wonder..._ "Rose!" She called out, not facing any direction in particular. Applejack perked an ear up and looked over to Twilight. When she realised that the random word had caught her attention, she blinked.

"... now why did ah just do that..." She scratched her head. _Aha!_ Twilight smiled.

"I think I've got it!"

"So, should we be taking notes, or..." Rarity chuckled. Twilight just waved it off.

"Part of the curse had to do with memory. When Celestia cursed everypony to live on four legs, she also removed their memory of their lives before. So now that she and the curse are gone, so is the memory loss. _But_, we're the only ponies alive today who _have_ any memories from before the curse!"

"Which is why I can do this?" Dash tossed the spear into the air, letting it twirl and spin chaotically, before catching it on a finger.

"Right. And why on a subconscious level we're answering to our old names. Isn't that right, Bree?" Twilight made a point to look at the floor while saying the last part.

"Huh?" Trixie, shivering by the wall out of cold and fear, looked up as if called. "... _dammit._"

"So what I think is happening is that while we all remember how to walk, Derpy here..." She motioned to the hovering pegasus. "... doesn't." Derpy frowned. "Don't worry, I'm sure it'll come pretty quickly to you, you just need... a little practice."

"Okay then. What now?" Rarity folded her arms.

"Well... I suppose we might as well take a look at Luna." Twilight sighed. Applejack, being nearest to the torch, picked it up and handed it over so Twilight could inspect the lifeless body.

Judging by how clotted and congealed the blood was, they had been out for a couple of hours, at least. Luna's form hadn't changed with theirs; she was still quadrupedal, her front legs terminating in flat hooves. _Guess it doesn't apply to the dead, then._ She noticed that all her jewellery was gone, but it didn't take her long to find it; the navy blue crown sparkled in the torchlight.

"Her... her last words..." Trixie sniffed. "They were, 'cry not for me... this is the least I could do'."

Twilight wiped some of the blood from Luna's face. She was ice-cold to the touch. Applejack removed her hat. Nopony cried - there was only the reverent silence.

A minute or so later, the cold became a little too much. Twilight shivered, breaking the silence. She took the crown, the neck ornament and the horseshoes, retrieved her saddlebags, and placed them carefully inside. When she was tucking away the last horseshoe, she noticed the book, set neatly aside with the other treasures. It was the same one Luna was reading when they arrived, and quite probably the one she was reading yesterday. The cover was unmarked. She looked it over for another moment, before sliding it into the bag too.

She picked up the saddlebag, and it hung awkwardly over her shoulder. _We might need to invent a new kind of bag._

"Let's go."

* * *

><p><em>Ughhh... mah head...<em> A young earth pony stirred awake. _Ah wonder if the other crusaders are up yet._

"Gphh?" She went to speak, only to find her jaw immobile, and she could taste a rough, bitter piece of cloth in her mouth. She panicked. She tried to open her eyes, but there was another piece of cloth tied around her face. Coarse ropes dug at her front fetlocks (which felt oddly different, though she couldn't put a hoof on why), and any kind of struggling she attempted merely resulted in a half inch shift along the cold dirt.

"Kobal!" A grainy, female voice called. She could hear something next to them scuffle on the ground, and an equally gravelly male voice respond attentively;

"Yes, captain?"

"Have they changed in the night?"

"About three hours ago."

"_Awesome._ Prepare the horde to attack at dawn."

"Yes, captain!"

* * *

><p>In a hotel room, a pegasus brooded over an old diary, flipping pages between her fingers.<p>

_Thump, thump, thump._

"It's unlocked." She responded to the banging on her door.

_Crash._

The door flew clean off its hinges, and skidded across the floor. Another pegasus stood in the doorway, leaning on the doorframe, holding a pillow over his crotch.

"Spitfire!"

"That might have been a _little_ unnecessary, Soarin."

"What's going on? I've had hangovers, but not like _this._"

"It's simple." Spitfire chuckled, pushing herself up from the bed. Her step was still a little unstable, but she used her wings to help keep balance. She was wearing the bottom half of her flight suit, the sleeves of the top half tied around her waist, and a short-sleeved white shirt. Originally it was close-fitting, but now it was quite baggy, and only reached her navel. She snapped the book closed. "I was right."

"What? About that old mare's tale?" Soarin raised an eyebrow.

"Have you got a better explanation?" Spitfire smirked. Soarin snorted and paused.

"Alright. Let's go with that. What do we do?"

"Are any of the others up?"

"Nope."

"Don't bother waking them. We don't have time."

"Uhm..."

"Suit up and head out. Somepony out there needs all the help she can get."

"The flight suits? Seriously?"

"Unless you plan to fly with that pillow between your legs, I suggest you at least try to squeeze into it. I doubt the citizens of Canterlot want to wake up to see, well, that." Spitfire chuckled, and pulled her goggles onto her forehead. Soarin glared, and stumbled away down the hall. _It has to be her. It's got to be something to do with her._ She pulled her spare goggles from the floor, where they'd been discarded the previous night, and stuffed them in the side of her flight suit, where the spandex held them securely to her hip. _I just hope she's ready._

* * *

><p>Most of the ponies they passed on the way up were unconscious; either servants sleeping in their beds, or royal guards, collapsed on duty. And with good reason, too - the first window they saw told them it was still dark outside.<p>

"So Twilight, what was your plan for explaining all this to the general public again?" Rarity quipped.

"I'm... kinda making this up as I go along." Twilight chuckled nervously.

"Speaking of making things up as we go along, think we can get some clothes?" Rainbow Dash chimed in.

"What's wrong? Ya cold?" Applejack thumped her shoulder in jest.

"Now, now, children, if you'll hush up for a moment..." Rarity tittered, and entered an empty bedroom, walking up to the curtain. In mere seconds, she'd levitated it from its railings, cut it up, folded the pieces around each other, magically stitched some of the fragments together, and changed the colour of some parts of it. The process was obscured by the flurry of cloth waving around in the air, but the result soon made itself clear; an elegant - if hastily made - white dress, sleeveless and ankle-length, with an indigo band around the bottom of the skirt. To top it off, she did a little flourish, smiling with satisfaction at her work. It wasn't the best-made dress, and the stitching probably wouldn't last too long, but it would certainly suffice.

"Uhm... you couldn't think of anythin' more, uh... practical?" Applejack raised a brow.

"What's wrong, Applejack? Afraid of being made to wear nice clothes?" Rarity chuckled.

"Actually, she has a point." Twilight interrupted. "We're probably going to have to walk home in these. Think more hiking wear than Gala dresses."

"Fine..." Rarity sighed. With another wild flurry of fabric whipping around, she transformed her improvised evening dress into a thicker, thigh-length winter coat, and used the remains to craft some knee-length shorts. "Better?"

"Much better."

_Boom. _"What was..." _Boom. _"...that?" The low, thundering sound continued at regular intervals. Rarity opened the window to get a look outside. The first light of the coming dawn was just about visible around the mountainside to the right, but the source of the sound was still obscured by the darkness. It was definitely coming from outside; as soon as the window was open, the sound became crystal clear. _Boom. _Drums. _Boom._ Many, large drums, all pounding in unison. _Boom._ War drums.

Rainbow Dash lunged towards the window, and as she went, she yanked the sheet off the bed and pulled a cord from the remaining curtain.

"I don't know, but it sounds like a problem!" She yelled, and she leaped out of the open window with her loot.


	30. No Quarter Griffon Or Asked

"Well! For those of us who _weren't _in a hurry to leap out windows with stolen goods, we now look absolutely _darling_, if I do say so myself!" Rarity chuffed, examining her work. None of the clothes were particularly elaborate, but they would hold up until she could sit down with sewing machine, and she'd be _damned_ if they didn't look good.

"Good job, now let's get moving before Rainbow Dash gets in over her head!" Twilight announced, leading the party out of the room. Rarity had given her a long, deep violet jacket and a white button-shirt to go with her shorts (for practicality purposes, knee- or shin-length pants were the standard). She had also fashioned her saddlebags into a new kind of carrying bag; the strap hung from the shoulder, and the bag itself rested on the rump on the other side. Spike had tried riding in the bag, but while he was small, he wasn't _that_ small.

"_Stop!_" A stallion's voice called from down the hall. Twilight spun on her hoof to see two royal guards lumbering down the hallway after them. Parts of their armour were broken off to accommodate their unexpectedly broad shoulders. "Stop right there, criminal scum!"

"Time to go!" Twilight squeaked, and started sprinting in the other direction. The others were quick to follow; the guards attempted an awkward pursuit.

"In Celestia's name, _stop!_" He barked. They just carried on down the hallway regardless.

_Bam._

Twilight burst down the door to the throne room. The windows at the back of the grandiose hall formed an upside down U-shape around the back of the throne, with gold and silver panels radiating from behind the throne to the windows. The room was aligned so that it faced east, so first light of the sun rising over the mountains would shine in. It was a clear morning, and the sky outside was getting brighter all the time. The room also contained, much to Twilight's chagrin, half a dozen royal guards, in varying states of readiness.

"You've violated the l-" Applejack slammed the door behind herself to silence the two guards still barrelling down the corridor. However, the damage was already done. The pegasus guards reared up on their wings and moved in on the party like dive bombers. Fluttershy and her green sweater had no problem evading them, and she made sure to help Derpy Hooves keep up. Applejack entered a fighting stance, and while the guards had a few improvised weapons, she had far better control of her axe. Pinkie Pie had enormous fun bouncing around, leaping out of tackles and watching the clumsy guards collide with each other. Rarity found this part alarmingly easy: she rendered herself invisible in a flash, and spent a few minutes just tripping up any guards she found wandering around on hoof. Trixie was trying her best to copy this spell, to limited success; nevertheless, her mixture of semi-visibility and cowardly running kept her relatively safe. Twilight, however, was not so lucky.

She leaped down a flight of stairs and botched the landing, tumbling across the floor and landing at the foot of the throne. Her bag was upended, and its contents spilled across the floor. Two guards quickly pounced her, one holding her down, while the other drew her sword from the sheath strapped to her back, and held it to her horn.

"No funny business." The one with her sword barked. "_What have you done with the Princesses?_"

"What?" _Oh no, oh no, oh no..._

"Princesses Celestia and Luna are missing, your 'friends' were last seen chasing her through the palace, and you're carrying Luna's crown _and _a weapon! Now tell us, where are they?" _Oh boy..._

"Listen, it's not what you think!"

"_Where are they?_"

"They're not who you think they are!"

"_Where are they, dammit?_"

"Eugh... _Luna sacrificed herself so we could banish Celestia because she was really a demon!_" Twilight blurted out. The guard flattened his brow, double-checking whether he had actually just heard that.

"I'm not screwing around here, where are they?"

"You're holding a sword to my horn. What could I possibly stand to gain from kidding?"

"Hmm. On the off chance that what you're saying is true, then... there's nothing to pull up the sun! _You've doomed us a-_" Before the guard had much chance to panic, Twilight raised a finger. When he stopped talking, she then pointed to the window.

"Any second now..." A few tense, silent seconds passed. The sky was growing brighter, but only at a rate noticeable to the most careful of observers. "Just watch." Sure enough, the first few degrees of the bright disc of the sun edged over the peaks outside, illuminating the room with the first orange light of sunrise. The guard's jaw dropped; before him, despite all things known to be true about the world, _the sun was rising by itself_. He shook his head and collected himself, pulling the sword away. His partner stepped off, letting Twilight get up.

"You've got... five minutes to explain yourself."

"Well..." She reached for two of the books spilled from her bag.

* * *

><p>Rainbow Dash scanned the horizon for the source of the sound. She'd hurriedly fashioned the bedsheet and cord into a tunic by wrapping the sheet around her body underarm and the folding part of it over her head, with a hole cut for the head. She'd tied the cord around her waist to help keep the whole thing on, and while the sheet originally went down to her hooves, she'd cut it to thigh length for mobility's sake. 'Rough and ready' was one way to describe the improvised clothing, and 'breezy' was another. But it would have to do for the time being.<p>

It was hard to place a direction on the drums. They seemed to be coming from every direction except the mountain, but she couldn't narrow it down beyond that. The sun rising through a mountain pass behind her started to light up some things, but the contrast made it even harder to pick out details in the shade. After a few minutes of frantic searching from her vantage point high in the sky, the drums ceased before she could get a hold on them. She was about to give up and return to the others, when a voice called to her from below, in the approximate direction of the forest:

"Took you long enough." She spun in the air to find the source. The voice was familiar; one that she didn't hear very often these days, but it didn't take too much effort to place it.

"... Gilda?" Lo and behold, the gryphon was gliding up from the forest to meet her in the air. She had an band tied around one of her front legs, and something strapped to her back, with a sack hanging off it. They circled each other idly in the cloudless sky.

"Come to watch the show, or are you still riding with those lame friends of yours?"

"'Show'?What are you talking about?"

"Do I have to explain everything?" Gilda sighed. "This is the part where we pick up where we left off a thousand years ago."

"What do you mean, 'we'?"

"Y'know, _we_. The horde." Gilda was as casual in her tone as she might be discussing dinner plans. Dash's stomach turned. _Why did I believe a word you said? _"I mean, you could be included in 'we' if you want to start being cool again. I've been told there's an offer outstanding with you." _Not this again..._ Dash pulled the spear off her back.

"I think you know the answer to that." She stared Gilda down through narrowed eyes. The gryphon just chuckled.

"Shoulda seen that one coming! Hah. But, I don't think you should be so quick to turn it down. After all, you've been doing us huge favours already."

"_What._"

"Oh, you didn't notice? Celestia was the only thing stopping us crashing this party, and thanks to you and that book, she's now a non-issue." Gilda folded her front legs and smirked. Dash fumed. "Consider it a way of saying 'thanks'. There's some big formal thing from the king I'm supposed to say, but it pretty much boils down to 'we think you're pretty swell, and if you join us we won't eat you'. We might be able to stretch that to include your 'friends', but I wouldn't count on it." Dash reared up her spear and prepared to charge. Gilda just raised a claw, while the other pulled the sack off her back strap. Dash stopped in her tracks. "Ah-ah Dash, you might want to think this through first." Gilda held the sack in front of her with one claw, and reached inside to pull a rope out with the other. The bag fell away, revealing its contents; suspended from the rope, bound, gagged and blindfolded, were four young fillies, all with little scarlet capes. _The Cutie Mark Crusaders?_

"Wh- that's... you're a _monster!_"

"Oh, you know these brats? That's hilarious! We just found the little tykes sleeping all alone last night. Small world, eh?"

"_You've got three seconds._"

"I've also got a shield, if you think hurling that rusty old stake at me is a good idea." Gilda smirked, waving the Crusaders around carelessly. Dash gripped the spear tightly, furiously contemplating the dilemma.

_Whoosh, smack._

Something far too fast to see tore across Dash's field of view. When she looked again, she saw Gilda recoiling from something - it looked like a blow to the face - and a smoke trail going from bottom-left to top-right. A few embers floated from the smoke. She had released the rope.

_Whoosh._

Just as quick as the first one, another blur crossed her vision, from bottom-right to top-left. There was another smoke trail left behind, crackling a little. The Crusaders had disappeared. Dash looked down, and they were nowhere to be seen. When she looked up and followed the contrails across the sky, she saw two bright spots at the heads of the trails; one a flaming orange, the other electric blue. _You're kidding me!_ The orange one swooped around behind her, while the blue one curved around to return to the city.

"Rainbow Dash!" The orange form called as it neared. It slowed down as it approached, coming to a stop about ten yards behind her, revealing itself to be a pegasus. Gilda was still clutching her face and groaning, so she figured she had a moment to talk.

"Wh- Spitfire?" Dash boggled. She rubbed her eyes and looked again to be sure; there, wearing the bottom half of a flight suit and a really baggy t-shirt, was her idol.

"That's uh, that's some dress you have there." Spitfire chuckled, pulling her goggles on to her forehead. Rainbow chuckled nervously, and tugged on the bottom of her makeshift tunic a little. "Just thought you could use a little help."

"I, uh, uhm..." Dash was struggling not to start babbling like an infatuated schoolfilly.

"Soarin has the hostages, he's setting them free in the city."

"I... how did you..."

"Long story. No time now." Spitfire stated bluntly. She pulled her spare goggles from her hip and tossed them to Dash. "I'll just leave it at, 'you've earned these'." Dash fumbled the catch a couple of times, before eventually clasping the goggles by one lens.

"Does this mean..." She gibbered.

"Hey!" Spitfire cut her off, pulling her own goggles back down. "Focus." Dash snapped out of her fannish daze, and nodded dutifully, slipping her new goggles on to her forehead. Soarin returned from the city to cover Dash's other flank. He wore just the bottom half of his flight suit; the arms were in tatters, and what was left of them was tied around his waist.

"Ahh, what's all this then?" Gilda sneered. Her head was bleeding at the side. "Is this your whole army? I knew you guys were punching above your weight, but this is _kinda_ ridiculous."

"You'll never take Canterlot. Not with Celestia on our side." Spitfire declared proudly. Gilda snickered.

"Ehh, about that..." Dash scratched the back of her head nervously. "... long story. No time now." Spitfire and Soarin exchanged concerned glances.

"_Ohoho man,_ this is rich!" Gilda cackled. "You guys are a scream! We might have to take you alive if you keep this up!"

"_Save it._" Dash growled, thrusting her spear forward. The point stopped just short of Gilda's beak.

"Hey!" She chuckled, moving the point out of her face. "There's no reason we can't be civil. Tell you what, since I'm feeling generous this morning, and you guys gave me _such_ a good laugh, I'll cut you a deal."

"I don't like this..." Soarin muttered. Spitfire waved an arm at him.

"I propose a wager. I go back to our camp in the forest, and you... just talk among yourselves or something, and each side chooses a champion. And then, they duel. Gryphon style - so, to the death. If the meat _I mean... _pony! If the _pony_ champion wins, we pack our bags, and we go home. We'll leave you alone, for a little while, at least. But if the gryphon champion wins, well... I don't think I need to tell you what happens then."

"And why shouldn't I just kill you right now?" Dash held her spear to her side, ready to thrust it at any moment.

"Oh, then the horde will just attack anyway. They hate it when their messengers get killed." Gilda chortled. The three pegasi looked at each other, each thinking the same thing; _It's not perfect, but it might be the only way._ "So." Gilda spat in her claw, and extended it in their general direction. "Do we have a deal, Dash?" Reluctantly, Spitfire gave a nod. Soarin sighed, and nodded also. Dash took a deep breath, and acknowledged their decision. "I haven't got all day, an answer would be nice!" Dash hacked to the back of her throat, and spat in her quivering hand. She hesitated another moment, before grabbing Gilda's claw and shaking it. _I feel so dirty right now._

"Deal."


	31. David and Goliath

A/N: Gah, I just realised that what I called the _last_ chapter would be much better suited for _this_ one. Oh well, I might rejig the names later on, might not.

* * *

><p>Three pegasi settled on a rooftop at the edge of the city, overlooking the forest. Rainbow Dash scanned the trees for signs of the gryphon camp. Soarin sat and gazed idly at the sky, while Spitfire fluttered around uneasily.<p>

"Well. The gryphon said she'd be a while, so I guess now we have some time. What was this about Celestia that we don't know?" Her tone was as chilly as the wind coasting past them. Dash gulped.

"Uhm..." _Where's Twilight when you need her!_ "... you... never told me how you knew I was up there."

"I think my question is more pressing."

"I asked first!"

"I can take those goggles _right _back if you want."

"Ladies!" Soarin shouted. "Priorities!" He pulled himself upright and crossed his arms. "Personally, I think Spitfire should go first, since I _still_ don't get what's up with that."

"Hah! Two beats one." Dash jeered.

"It was a hunch."

"Spitfire." Soarin glared at her. "The diary."

"_Ugh, _fine..." _I'm surrounded by kids._ "This is gonna sound a little crazy, but it all starts with this book." Dash wiped the smirk off her face, and paid close attention. "A diary specifically. Belonged to one of my ancestors. It's the first written account of the Sonic Rainboom, and the only one until you came along. _But_, that's not the only thing in here. It dates back over a thousand years, and it's got all kinds of information about ancient Equestria that's not on the history books. I won't bore you with the details, but it kept talking about stuff like gryphons, and weird body shapes that didn't make sense... I have to admit, when you did the Sonic Rainboom, I started looking for signs. Looking at things in another light. And then today happens, and it's like the whole thing just jumped off the pages." She chuckled. "It was a bit of a shot in the dark, I mean, an old diary isn't much to go on, but well, here we are."

"That's funny..." Dash scratched her chin. "My story starts with a book too."

"Oh? This should be interesting." Spitfire hovered upside down. Soarin groaned, muttered something about 'bookworms', and turned away to watch the city waking up.

"Well. Basically, my friend Twilight Sparkle found this book in her library, that was _also_ about Equestria a thousand years ago, and _also_ had a whole load of stuff about gryphons, and ponies' bodies being different. But most importantly, it talks about where Celestia came from, _and_ how it's all related. To cut a _really_ long story short, she's a control freak demon from another dimension, and the way we were until last night was a curse to keep us on a leash."

"And... what happened to her?"

"Well, after we found this out, we did a whole lot of fact-checking to make _sure_ it was all true, and then we sent her back where she came from and put everything back the way it was."

"So..." Spitfire looked increasingly uncomfortable. "You just went and threw away what was easily our best defence against the gryphons?" Dash chewed her lip.

"Actually, it was more like the _only_ defence..."

"I don't suppose you thought about all the ponies that are going to die as a direct result of this?"

"Okay, we didn't think absolutely everything through. But... if you knew what I knew, would you be able to live with that? Could you go on with your life, knowing that everything around you - and I mean _everything_ - was a lie, and not do anything about it?" Dash furrowed her brow. Spitfire inhaled and thought deeply.

"Rainbow Dash, what you did was impulsive, reckless, stupid, and... probably exactly what I would have done." Spitfire conceded with a wry smile. "We're more alike than I thought." They paused, neither thinking of anything more to say on the matter. "Anyway. The important stuff."

"Right."

"Finally!" Soarin turned to face them again.

"So, who here has actually fought before?" Spitfire asked, with unfortunate sincerity. _Ha, we are so dead._

"Don't know about fighting, but I've sure got the _guns!_" Soarin boasted, flexing his biceps. Spitfire and Rainbow both rolled their eyes.

"You're also about as coordinated as a drunken schoolcolt right now."

"Aw..."

"Dash, do you know how to use that thing?" Spitfire pointed to the spear. Dash deftly lifted it into the air, twirled it, and balanced the blunt end on her finger. She let it spin for a few seconds, before dropping and catching it.

"A little." She replied innocuously. Spitfire sighed. She looked to Soarin, and he nodded. She turned back to Dash, and looked her dead in the eyes.

"_Don't mess it up._"

* * *

><p><em>Thump.<em>

Applebloom rolled in the upstairs window of a closed clothes shop and tripped on the windowsill. She was still a little unsteady on her hooves, but she was getting there; she wasn't going to let a silly little thing like bipedalism stop her now. Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Dinky Hooves stumbled in after her.

"Applebloom, are you sure about this? I mean, _stealing_?"

"This is an emergency, Sweetie Belle!" The little earth pony barked as she started rummaging through boxes to find something to wear. There were a lot of grown-up clothes, and even the foal's clothes they found were really baggy.

"_Ugh_, I guess they'll have to do..." Dinky whinged.

"At least we still have our capes!" Scootaloo beamed.

"Alright Crusaders, let's get movin'! Twilight 'n her friends ain't gonna find themselves!"

* * *

><p>"We're out of time. Good luck, Rainbow." Spitfire patted Dash on the shoulder. Three gryphons had emerged from the trees, and were approaching the city. Dash, Spitfire and Soarin glided down from their perch to meet them halfway. As the distance closed, they recognised Gilda among the group.<p>

"I trust you've come to a decision?" She asked as soon as they were within earshot. She made no secret of how she was only pretending to be formal. Dash pulled the spear off her back and broke away from the other two. Spitfire and Soarin hung back to watch.

"Yeah."

"Good." The two gryphons flanking Gilda drifted back a little, and she drew another spear, similar in design, but much newer. "Because so have we." _Oh, for the love of..._ "You're lucky we were able to strike this deal. We thought we weren't going to convince the captain, but... she was feeling generous this morning." She smirked.

"Let's just do this." Dash snapped. Gilda shrugged nonchalantly. One of the other gryphons began to bark instructions, read from a scroll.

"In accordance with the laws presided and defended by King Eisen the first, the rules of duelling shall now be read!" The two opponents began to circle each other. Dash glared spitefully at Gilda, who just returned a mischievous grin. "Three rules will be observed. Rule one: neither duellist shall be permitted external aid in the course of the duel. Any attempt to request aid shall be considered a forfeit. Rule two: the duel will continue until one duellist is dead. Any attempt at surrender shall be considered a forfeit. Rule three: should the duel be forfeit, the winner is entitled to take the life of the loser." Spitfire gulped. _I hope you know what you're doing, Dash._ "The arbitrator will now commence the duel." The third gryphon drifted around to a position above Gilda and Dash.

"Champions, _ready!_" He screamed. The two of them assumed combative stances. "Three! Two! One!" He inhaled deeply, and forced a shrill whistle through his beak. The ear-splitting _screech_ briefly stunned Dash, but Gilda was prepared for it, and charged immediately at the signal.

Dash barely had time to react, parrying the charge at the very last moment. She felt the spear point whisk past her face, close enough to fan cold air on it. This gave her the jump she needed, and she ducked to dive downwards for a few yards. Gilda banked around in a wide arc, giving Dash plenty of time to recover and face her. _Well, she definitely means business. I just hope ol' Bolt Spectra was as good at fighting as the book said she was._ On Gilda's second approach, Dash started a counter-charge, both of them holding their spears behind them. Gilda telegraphed her attack with a long, wide, backswing, and Dash prepared a parry, pulling her spear in front of her.

When they made contact, Gilda's spear stayed behind her. Instead, she brought her free claw around, attempting to slash the pegasus in the face. However, she failed to keep track of Dash's leg. Dash swung her leg upwards when they met, slamming her knee under Gilda's beak. This interrupted the slash's course, but in return, Dash got two long scratches on her thigh as she pulled away. One was along the side from Gilda's claw, and the other along the top, from the point of the beak. _Agh!_ She'd suffered injuries in training before, but this was excruciating. And just from scratches! She dreaded what a serious injury would feel like.

She rotated her hips to swing her other leg around, and hurl a hoof to Gilda's other shoulder. Gilda caught the hoof before it made contact, and flung her away. Caught off guard, Dash spun out and careered towards the city.

* * *

><p>"... and that's how we all ended up here." Twilight snapped shut her book. The guards still looked a little confused, but were reasonably satisfied with the explanation. At any rate, they weren't trying to apprehend her friends.<p>

"So... if Celestia is gone, shouldn't that mean..." The guard was distracted in the middle of his sentence by the window behind them shattering. A spear hurtled through the glass and stuck in the floor, and a big ball of colours and feathers tumbled in after it, glass cuts along her forearms and scratches on her legs. She skidded to a halt on the floor.

"Rainbow Dash!" Twilight scurried over to help the pegasus up. Dash refused her help, and rose to her hooves under her own steam. "What happened?"

"We got a problem." As soon as she was up on her hooves, she grabbed the spear from the ground. "A whole _horde_ of problems." Without any further explanation, she sprinted towards the broken window and took off through it.

"A whole horde of pr- oh, horseapples, the _gryphons! _I can't believe I forgot!"

"G... gryphons?" Trixie squeaked. Twilight bounded over to the window to see the duel in the distance.

"Guys, we need to think of something, and _fast._"

* * *

><p>"Need me to slow down for you, Dash?" Gilda chuckled as the pegasus fluttered back up.<p>

"_Like hell I do._" Dash growled, and reared up for another charge. Gilda responded in kind, and they barrelled towards each other, spears hanging behind them. Another clash, another fruitless combination of parries and flesh wounds. Dash's spear grazed the side of Gilda's head, ripping out some feathers, while Gilda was able to slash across Dash's belly. Were it not for the the torsion of her parry, the claws would have gone deep enough to hit gut. With both of Gilda's front legs busy, Dash was able to put one of her newer strengths to work; she pulled both her legs up, pressing her knees to her chest, and kicked firmly with both hooves. Gilda lifted her head in time to take both blows to the chest, shattering three ribs, but avoiding a potentially fatal blow to the skull. They separated again. While Dash reeled from the gashes on her stomach, Gilda wasn't even fazed. _She's gonna keep this up all day... there has to be another way. Maybe..._

Dash steeled herself, and immediately entered a third charge.

"Come back for more, eh?" Gilda jeered, before returning the rush. About a second before contact, Dash dipped sharply. Gilda tried to stop and turn, but her inertia made her sluggish. Dash spun in the air to face upwards, and hurled her spear into the sky. It twirled into the air, flying straight up, missing Gilda by a mile. Dash hovered where she was, and folded her arms. Gilda turned in time to see Dash floating there casually, unarmed. She tilted her head. "Giving up already?"

"Nah. I'm just playin' on hard mode." Dash chuckled, keeping one eye on the sky.

"If you wanna raise the stakes, then _done._" Gilda readily tossed her spear away. Not wasting any time, she launched straight into a charge. Dash had no problem diving out of the way, and Gilda's momentum kept her from immediately pursuing.

_Schling._

Dash's spear came down on Gilda in the space she had just vacated. _Thanks, Bolt. You really knew how to use that thing. _The spear had drifted a little off target during its flight, but it was still close enough - it embedded itself in Gilda's right wing, severing a number of key muscles and an artery.

"_Agh! _You little..."

"I missed your head." Dash smirked. With Gilda's flight badly handicapped, Dash dove to catch the discarded spear. The gryphon tried to keep altitude with limited success. Before long, blood loss began to take its toll, and she plummeted to the ground.

_Thump._

Gilda landed in the snow at the foot of the hill, just short of the forest. Dash swooped down on the crash site and landed a few yards away. The four observers dropped down to watch, the two gryphons sitting on the tree tops, the two pegasi sitting on the hill.

"Heh..." Gilda coughed, spitting a little blood on her white chest feathers. She was badly injured in the fall, and her breathing was pained. "Someone got smart." Dash breathed deeply, struggling to keep her cool as she approached. "But maybe not smart enough."

"Save the mind games, Gilda." Dash snarled, raising her spear, holding the point towards the fallen gryphon.

"Well? Go on. Finish the job." Gilda coughed again. "What are you waiting for?" Dash hesitated. "What's the matter? Can't do it? Too _lame?_"

"Ugh, _enough!_" Dash's patience snapped, and she jammed the spear forward.

_Squelch._

The point easily sliced through Gilda's shattered ribs, piercing her heart. The wound began to bleed profusely, dripping on to the snow. But, even in the face of imminent death, the gryphon let out a pained, mischievous chuckle. She grabbed Dash's arm and pulled her closer, whispering to her.

"They... hate it... when their messengers... get killed..." She spluttered. Her grip loosened, leaving another few scratches on Dash's forearm, and she collapsed backwards, her beak hanging loose. Dash didn't celebrate, and she didn't cry; she simply breathed. One of the gryphons - the designated arbitrator - fluttered down from his perch and landed next to her. He grabbed her wrist roughly and hoisted it up high.

"_Winner!_" He squawked. Neither Spitfire nor Soarin cheered; a simple sigh of relief sufficed. The other gryphon, still clutching a couple of scrolls under his front leg, wore a knowing smirk upon his beak. It didn't take long for Dash to notice this.

"What are you smiling about?" She snapped. He simply blinked, pulled out another scroll, and resumed his pontificating.

"In accordance with the laws presided and defended by King Eisen the first, the worldly possessions and mantles of the loser in a duel are to be treated as follows. If the winner is under the protection of the laws of King Eisen the first, and is of sufficient physical and mental faculty to do so, they may take for themselves any possession or title belonging to the loser that they choose, and any debt or service owed to the loser is henceforth owed to the winner." _Wow, gryphon laws are weird._ "However:" _This can't be good._ "If the winner is a criminal, a citizen of another nation, a citizen of no nation or otherwise outside the protection of King Eisen the first, then the possessions and titles of the loser are passed on to their next of kin, and any debt or service owed to the loser is deemed null and void in the eyes of the law of King Eisen the first." _Whoever this 'King Eisen' is, they sure like the sound of their own name._ Dash furrowed her brow, and then turned to Spitfire.

"Did you get any of that?" She asked. Spitfire pouted and shrugged. Soarin was idly playing with his fingers.

"It _means..._" The gryphon cut in, rolling up the scroll. "... that because you, the winner, are a citizen of Equestria, the service of the gryphons of the horde to Captain Gilda is deemed complete, and they are no longer bound to conditions of the wager." Spitfire went wide eyed. Dash blinked, still a little lost. _Uh, okay. Don't see why that was relevant, but whatever._

"So... we win?"

"No, that's very, very, _very_ bad!" Spitfire shook her head frantically. "It means there's forest full of hungry gryphons who are about to attack _anyway!_"

"Wh- why that dirty double-cro-" By the time this twigged with Dash, the two gryphons were already about to set upon her. She yanked her spear out of Gilda's wing in time to hold one of them back, and Spitfire leapt in to block the other with a flying kick. Soarin swooped around to grab the other spear.

"Everypony back to the city, _now!_" Spitfire yelled. Neither Rainbow Dash nor Soarin needed to be told twice.


	32. Welcome To The Real World

Rainbow Dash, Spitfire and Soarin skidded to a halt on the floor of the throne room, nearly stumbling over each other. Twilight stood well clear of the window, and was on hand to help them up.

"Rainbow Dash! What happened? I saw-"

"Captain!" Spitfire pushed past Twilight, looking for one of the guards still milling around. Rarity was churning out uniforms from curtains around the room. Fluttershy went straight for Rainbow Dash to inspect and bandage her wounds. "Captain, get the city guard ready, the gryphon horde is about to attack!"

"There's no way we can defend the city! We've never trained for anything like this!"

"Then hold them off while we evacuate!" She barked. The guard nodded, and rushed off to spread the word.

"Is that it? That all we can do?" Applejack folded her arms.

"'Fraid so." Rainbow Dash stepped in. "There's too many of them to take down here. We tried to cut a deal, but they double-crossed us."

"Why am I not surprised." Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Alright, what evacuation plans do we have?"

"Storm drains." Applejack replied quickly.

"The horde's in the forest, we'll be serving 'em dinner on a plate." Dash sighed. Fluttershy finished bandaging her arms, and started on her thigh.

"So, the city gates are probably the same story..." Twilight mused, frowning.

"There's a cave system in the mountain the city's built into. If we can get one of the entrances open, we can hide the ponies in there." Spitfire chimed in.

"The caves, of course! We just need to get out and spread the word. We'll need to split up to cover the most ground. There's ten of us, so we can do five groups of two." Twilight started to pace as she planned.

"Uh... ten?" Spitfire tilted her head, and made a quick headcount, not counting the guards scurrying around. "I can only see nine."

"Huh?" _Nine? That's not right. Let's see, me, Rainbow, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Derpy, the two Wonderbolts... _"Where's Trixie?"

"Hah! Coward probably ran away!" Dash chuckled.

"She did more than just run away, darling..." Rarity added, tapping Twilight on the shoulder. "... she made off with something of yours." When Twilight looked around, she saw Rarity looking at the miscellany on the floor from her bag. Luna's regalia was still there, along with two books: _Diaries of a Planeswalker,_ and Luna's blank volume.

"Where's..." _The Birth of Celestia_ was still in her hand. _Magic of the Body_, however... "... oh no."

"What?" Applejack tilted her head.

"Trixie might be about to do something _very_ stupid."

"Aw, horsefeathers, not again!"

"Okay, change of plan. Rarity, you come with me, we're going to track down Trixie and stop her before it's too late. The rest of you, go out into the city and start directing ponies to the caves. You'll probably need to help the defenders while you're out there, so stay sharp." Twilight let out a worried sigh. "Guys... welcome to the real world."

* * *

><p>Four young fillies hurried through the streets uneasily.<p>

"My scooter has to be around somewh-_it's coming back!_" Scootaloo squealed. All four of them dived for a crevice between two buildings, barely squeezing into the narrow space. A gryphon swooped through the spot where they had been standing, the accompanying wind covering them in a faint sprinkling of snow.

"What _is_ that thing!" Dinky Hooves gawped.

"I think it's one o' them gryphon things from Twilight's storybook!" Applebloom blinked, shaking her head to clear the snow.

"_Cool..._" Scootaloo quickly received a _bop_ on the head from Sweetie Belle.

"Now it's _extra_ dangerous! We gotta keep movin'!" Applebloom shoved her way out of the crack, and stumbled into the clearing. Hesitantly, the others followed.

"Applebloom, look out!" Sweetie Belle dived over to tackle her to the ground. Another _whoosh_ of cold air and particulate snow washed over them.

"_Look!_ It's Rainbow Dash!" Scootaloo pointed at the multicoloured trail that had just passed overhead. "They're here!" With Dinky, she helped the other two up.

"_Alright!_" They squealed together. Their celebrations were interrupted, however, when they noticed a third object making a pass at them - another gryphon. Applebloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo dove one way, Dinky the other. The gryphon _thudded_ to a halt between them. It looked one way, at Dinky, and then the other, at the other three. Following its stomach, it turned to face the pile of three fillies, and they started scrambling away to the nearest building.

"Dinky, _run!_ Don't worry about us, save yerself!" Applebloom screamed as they tumbled in the door and threw it shut. Dinky made herself scarce before the gryphon went back for her.

* * *

><p>A gryphon shrieked in agony as a spear lodged itself in its back. Not a second later, the spear's owner grabbed it and slammed two hooves into the gryphon's back, removing it and sending the injured raider spiralling to the ground. Another pegasus drifted by.<p>

"Don't get too distracted Dash. Heroics could get you killed." Spitfire warned. Dash just snorted. A short way below them, Soarin was circling the place he left the Cutie Mark Crusaders earlier, with an anxious Derpy Hooves hovering nearby.

"I was sure I left them right here..."

"Knowing them, they've probably gone looking for trouble." A squawk and a squeal caught their attention. _I recognise that voice..._ "_Dinky!_" In the time it took Soarin to turn around, Derpy was already bolting for the source of the noise.

"Wait... where did she..."

She rounded a street corner to see a gryphon raider rearing up and baring its claws, a malevolent grin on its beak. On the ground below it, backed up to a wall, was a little grey unicorn filly, screaming for help. Instinct gripped her. She didn't stop to think - her body just moved by itself. Three long strides closed the gap. She was leaning forward almost horizontally, only her speed and the beating of her wings keeping her from falling in the snow. On the last step, she put her hands out in front of herself, slightly to the left, and tucked her knees in. The rest of her body kept travelling, and she swivelled clockwise on her hands. After nearly a half turn, she struck her legs out forcefully.

_Crack._

Two hooves connected with the gryphon's head at a ludicrous speed. Its neck snapped ninety degrees, and it crumpled to the floor instantly. She lost balance after the impact, and fell ungraciously on her stomach. Dinky blinked incredulously.

"M... _mom?_"

"Dinky!" Derpy perked up, pushing herself from the floor to sit on her legs.

"_Mom!_" Dinky stumbled forward, and the two embraced.

"Oh, Dinky..." Tears streamed from Derpy's eyes as she held her daughter tight. Even though they were both covered in snow, it still felt warm. Even though chaos raged around them, it still felt peaceful. She planted a firm kiss on her head, and whispered, "Don't ever scare me like that again..."

* * *

><p><em>Smash.<em>

A woodcutting axe twirled out of a window, shattering the window, followed by two earth ponies. Applejack held firmly on to her hat, and Pinkie Pie flailed wildly. Behind them, the room they had just hurriedly vacated lit up with an almighty _bang_. Pinkie looked back, watching her firework detonate inside, and a raider perish with it. Applejack looked down to the ground, noting that it was much longer down than they had anticipated. Rather than the street rushing forward to meet them, it was the ground off the side of the cliffs. Before they could fall much further, they both felt a sharp yanking on the necks of their tops.

"_Hnnng_, I gotcha!" Fluttershy had grabbed them, and while she wasn't able to carry them back up, she could slow their descent to a safe speed. They dropped the last three yards, and stumbled on landing.

"_Wheee!_ That was fun! Can we do it again?" Pinkie giggled, pulling the hood of her pink, white and cyan-striped hoodie out of her face. Applejack just glared at her and dusted off her jacket. Fluttershy drifted down after them, panting and rubbing her arms.

"Thanks for the save, Fluttershy, good work!" Applejack smiled, getting up and patting Fluttershy on the back. She nodded in acknowledgement, but was too exhausted to respond with words. Pinkie stood up and sniffed the air.

"_Pee-yew,_ what is that smell?" She clutched her nose and screwed up her face.

"It's..." Applejack looked around and saw a gaping hole in the cliff-face ten yards downhill from them. She thought back, scenes from the storm drains two nights ago playing back in her mind. _Sewer gasses are highly flammable... blow all of Canterlot sky-high... _"... sewer gas..." Inspiration struck. "Pinkie! Think ya can wire a fuse to go up to the sewers?"

"It wouldn't be hard, don't know why you'd want to, but... okie dokie lokie, I guess!"

"Ah think we just found ourselves a way to fight back." Applejack smirked. Charred gryphon feathers drifted down around them.

* * *

><p>Twilight Sparkle and Rarity sprinted through the corridors of the palace, following minute traces of arcane energy. They stopped at a junction of hallways, three of them converging on a set of double doors.<p>

"_Augh!_ There's too many signatures here, I'm losing the trail!" Twilight groaned, trying desperately to focus.

"Uhm, Twilight..." Rarity blinked at the floor. "Darling, I don't think you need to follow her magic trail anymore..."

"Wait, what?" Twilight looked over to Rarity, and then down at the floor. A pool of blood stained the carpet, and a trail led through the closed doors. Twilight's heart sank. "Oh, no... this is bad... this is _very _bad!" She rushed to try and open the door. _Darn! Locked._ She took a few steps back, and lunged at the door with a hoof outstretched. The doors just rocked together. "_Ugh! _Where's Applejack when you need her?" She took a few more steps back and got a bit of a run-up. This time, the lock gave way, and the doors swung open.

A horrific sight greeted them when the barged in. This was another one of the palace's drawing rooms; bookshelves lined the walls to either side, and the back wall was all windows. The trail of blood under the door led to the body of a guard, large parts of his white coat stained red. A large circle had been drawn around him in his blood, with several other shapes traced inside. Behind him, sitting on the room's desk with bloodstained hands and leafing through a copy of _Magic of the Body_ held telekinetically in front of her, was Trixie. Her blue jacket lay in a heap on the floor, and her white vest was stained with splatters of blood.

"Trixie, what the _hell_ do you think you're doing?" Twilight barked. Trixie raised an eyebrow and snapped the book shut.

"Saving us all, what do you think?" She replied casually.

"You're _insane!_"

"And to think I wasted a perfectly good outfit on you!" Rarity added. Twilight elbowed her.

"Priorities, Rarity."

"_I'm_ not insane, _you're_ the ones that are insane!" She threw the book aside. "_You're_ the ones who set those... those _beasts_ on us, and I'm going to do something about it!" Twilight was having none of the spiel, and pulled her sword from her back to charge. Rarity pulled out her dagger and followed. About a foot in front of the patterns on the floor, she collided with a translucent blue wall, stunning her. Rarity skidded to a halt just short. Trixie just chuckled. "Today will be remembered as the day the _Great and Powerful_ Trixie saved Canterlot from the _ravenous_ gryphon horde, and the madpony Twilight Sparkle who brought them here, and there isn't a _thing_ you can do about it." _Oh, for the love of..._

* * *

><p>Derpy Hooves kept Dinky close to her as she went about her business. When they saw gryphons, they hid. When they saw ponies, they directed them to the caves. When they saw the two together, Derpy did her best to get the gryphon's attention (Dinky even helped with this, advertising herself as a 'juicy, succulent foal'), and then made themselves scarce. They weren't always successful with this, but they tried.<p>

"Alright love, I think we can stop for a breather now..." Derpy panted, and they took shelter in a building.

"_Finally_..." Dinky sighed. Derpy couldn't help but smile, and they pushed open the door. Once open, she gasped. Three gryphons were lounging around inside. The remains of a pony lay on the floor in the middle of the room, and one of them was licking blood off its claws. The one nearest the door scrambled, and grabbed its spear. Instinct took over again, and she yanked Dinky back, tossing her behind her. The spear was thrust into the empty space Dinky left behind. This only served to aggravate the gryphon, and it took another jab at Derpy as she hunkered down to turn and flee.

_Crack._

The point drove itself into her left eye about an inch, and she stopped in her tracks. The gryphon, with a smirk, let the embedded spear go, waiting for the fountain to start.

"_Mom!_" Dinky screamed in horror.

Derpy wasn't quite sure what to make of this. She stood there, contemplating just what to do next for a moment. When she did, the three gryphons' beaks dropped in awe. She calmly put one hand up to her left eye, holding in place with two fingers, one either side of the blade. With the other, she gently pulled on the spear shaft, pulling it free of her prosthetic eye. A few shards of broken glass fell from the hole, and she blinked a couple of times. She winced, and kept her left eye closed. She held the spear behind her, copying the way she had seen some gryphons carrying them earlier, and responded coolly and calmly;

"Now, _that wasn't very nice_." The three gryphons panicked, and scrambled for an exit. Dinky laughed as they fled in terror. Derpy smiled a little to herself.

* * *

><p>The three remaining Cutie Mark Crusaders huddled behind a low wall, slowly moving along it, keeping out of view of a pair of gryphon raiders in the street. Scootaloo sneaked a peek over the wall, silently edging her head up as far as the nose. The two gryphons were idly lounging around, possibly sharing a joke in a language she didn't understand. Behind them, however, was the real point of interest; a little blue plank of wood, with handlebars sticking out of the front, and four wheels attached to the bottom.<p>

"_My scooter!_" She whispered. She inadvertently caught the attention of the gryphons, and Applebloom yanked her back into cover, clamping her hand over her mouth.

_Crunch._

The three fillies blinked, and looked back over the wall, again, covertly. The two gryphons were spasming on the ground, and over them stood Rainbow Dash and Soarin. Down the street, Spitfire jumped out of cover.

"Alright, this way to the caves, everypony! There'll be time for autographs later." They ducked back into cover.

"Caves?" Scootaloo quirked a brow.

"I just hope we can actually get into them, nopony's used those catwalks for years." Soarin muttered to Dash.

"Pff. Like the ones in the storm drains then?" She replied. The plan clicked with Applebloom.

"They must be movin' people into the caves to get away from the gryphons!" She blurted, still keeping her voice down. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle gasped.

"So that's what they're doing..."

"An' did you hear what they said there? If those catwalks are broken, they're _doomed!_"

"So what do we do?"

"We fix 'em." Applebloom thumped her fist against her open palm. The three fillies leaped over the wall and rushed across the street.

"Wh- Applebloom? Scootaloo? Sweetie Belle?" Dash blinked as they pushed past her, and jumped on to the scooter and wagon.

"No time!" Applebloom yelled, and Scootaloo took off down the street.

* * *

><p>Twilight groaned as she peeled herself off the magical barrier. She picked up her sword, and leaned her head down to focus.<p>

"Trixie, we are _not_ going through this again."

"Oh? Just _try_ and stop me, then." Trixie tittered, adding the finishing touches to the ritual she was preparing. Twilight glared, and another barrier sprung up around her and Rarity. She calmly walked forward, and the barrier merged with Trixie's, allowing the two unicorns access. Trixie rolled her eyes. "Oh, please..."

The original barrier dissipated, and Trixie drew her sword from her back. Twilight lunged forward, telegraphing a sweeping slash attack, while Rarity phased out of view. Trixie blocked Twilight's swipe with ease, and had enough time to change the sword to her left hand, and pull her fist back to prepare a punch. Twilight braced for an impact that never came - Trixie's body jerked forward suddenly, allowing Twilight to pull back. However, Trixie had a wry smile hidden behind her forelock. Twilight looked over Trixie's shoulder to see a very confused Rarity floating in the air helplessly.

"_What?_"

"That trick didn't work the first time, why should it work again?" Trixie turned and started guiding the befuddled unicorn around.

"Where did you learn about snares?" Twilight barked.

"Well, you said it yourself! We were the only ponies with memories to get back after a thousand years. I guess I must have picked this one up before we left!" Trixie giggled, before tossing Rarity through the back window and releasing her. _Oh n- wait... _Twilight started sprinting to the window. "Now, as you can see, history is about to repeat itself!" Trixie continued to monologue, oblivious to Twilight leaping out after Rarity.

"Twilight, are you _crazy?_" Rarity screamed when she saw Twilight emerge. The window was high up, and they had at least five seconds of airtime before they would meet the street.

"_Maybe!_" She grinned. This didn't exactly comfort Rarity; nevertheless, she had to go along with it. Twilight streamlined her body, accelerating to meet Rarity. "_Head down!_" She grabbed her by the waist, and a split second before impact, winked out with her. Up above, Trixie was still pontificating to thin air.

"You've got the same choice again, Twilight, stall me a few more seconds, or save your friend. What'll it be?" She pointed at the space where she expected her to be. "... huh?"

_Fwsh._

A flash of light erupted by the doors. Two unicorns appeared out of nowhere, flying at high speed straight towards her. She had barely registered this by the time they closed the gap with her. Twilight and Rarity braced for impact, clinging on to each other for dear life.

_Crunch._

Both their heads thumped into Trixie's torso, shattering her ribs. They were both dazed by the impact, but Trixie was knocked flying. The two of them crumpled on the desk and rolled off it to a stop, bruised, winded and concussed, but alive. Trixie, on the other hand, sailed through the air and out the window, screaming. Twilight pushed herself up from the floor in time to hear a sickening _crunch_ from outside.

"Not so great and powerful now, are you?"


	33. The Jaws of Defeat

At the base of the cliffs, Pinkie Pie emerged from the storm drains with an improvised fuse, humming to herself.

"All you gotta do is take a cup of sulphur, add it to the mix! Now just take a little something black, not yellow, a little charcoal, just a pinch! Making these treats is such a cinch, and a teaspoon of saltpeter! Add a little more and you count to four, and you stand back twenty metres!" She giggled, and hopped down from the pipe. She led the fuse up the hill a short way, and found a comfy, relatively hidden place to sit with a pair of flints. "Now, just wait for the signal..." She lay back in the snow and gazed out at the sky. "Daww, there are no clouds today... you'd think with all the snow lately there'd be _something_, but _noooo..._"

* * *

><p>The Crusaders' scooter skidded to a halt by a rocky outcrop at the back of the city, against the mountain face, sheltered behind a bunch of old buildings. They disembarked and scurried across the bare rocks the mouth of the cave.<p>

"Gee, it sure is dark in he_whUOA!_." Applebloom nearly slipped at the edge of a crevice, only for Scootaloo to grab her just in time. Sweetie Belle screwed up her face, and just about managed to light up her horn with a simple torch spell.

"Whoa! _Cool!_"

"Thanks! I've been practicing." Sweetie Belle chuckled.

"Now..." Applebloom leaned over the edge to inspect the damage. "Is this even the right cave? Ah don't see _any _catw-oh there it is, all... the way... down there..." She gulped, looking at the rotted planks about two dozen yards down. "Ah can't work with that!" She stood at the edge of the crevice, arms folded, thinking. An idea struck Scootaloo; _Hmm. Need wood here, wood out there, have a scooter. I'd say that adds up!_

"I know! I can fetch some wood from outside!"

"That's a great idea!"

"Are ya fast enough though? Those ponies will be here any minute!"

"You know it!" Scootaloo smirked, and hopped on to her scooter. She was away like a shot. Heading the other way, an adult pegasus and a unicorn filly entered the cave. The unicorn ran ahead excitedly.

"Guys! You're alright!"

"_Dinky!_" Applebloom and Sweetie Belle greeted her joyously. Derpy couldn't help but grin as she followed her daughter into the cave.

"Good to see you fillies are okay." she smiled. She had a makeshift bandage over her left eye.

"Now... what to do with this..." Applebloom resumed observing the crevice, trying to make out the other side.

"That is a bit of a problem..."

It didn't take Scootaloo long at all to return. No more than two minutes later, she skidded to a halt inside the cavern with a wagon piled high with large wooden planks, some long nails and a hammer.

"Wow, Scoot! Where didja find all these?" Applebloom immediately started inspecting the planks.

"There's a hardware store just down the street," Scootaloo puffed. "The owner... well... he won't be needing these anymore." She grimaced. Derpy gulped. Applebloom wasn't too concerned with that; she was focussing on the task at hand.

First, she nailed planks together into four long beams, two slightly longer than the other two. She sent Scootaloo away to get more supplies, because there was no way the single wagonful would be enough for the job. Once these were prepared, she added cross-beams at regular intervals between the two longer beams, then to the two shorter beams, and then between the two 'ladders', creating a long boxy structure. It looked like four ladders stuck together at their sides. At this stage, it was still on the ground in the cave mouth, where she could access all parts of it without needing Derpy's help. Finally, she added struts to each of the squares along the structure, dividing them into triangles. She worked quickly - the whole job was done inside fifteen minutes.

"Alright! We just need to push this across, and then we can send ponies in here!" Applebloom smiled at her own handiwork. She gave it a firm kick at one of the sides to test its stability. Sure enough, it held firm, and she just pushed herself on to her back. "Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, send 'em in!"

"Got it!" While Derpy helped Applebloom move the bridge into position, and Dinky lit the way for them, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle scurried out of the cave.

Outside, scattered crowds of ponies were just carrying on down the street, staggering along fearfully. A few of them looked around themselves, but none of them showed any signs of changing direction.

"Where are they going?"

"_Hey!_" Scootaloo jumped onto a high rock and waved her arms in the air. "Hey, over here! This w-_Ah!_" At the last moment, she jumped down from the rock into a gully, narrowly avoiding a gryphon swooping around to grab her.

"_Whoa,_ that was close, Scootaloo!"

"How can we get their attention if we can't stand up high?" She whimpered. Sweetie Belle furrowed her brow, and thought of something. She hopped down to the gully - sheltered from gryphon attack - and cleared her throat. Ideally she would have liked a glass of water before she started, but pressed for time, she made do. She took a deep breath, and projected.

"_We are the Cutie Mark Crusaders_..."

"Sweetie Belle, why... are you singing?"

"..._on a quest to find out who we are..._" The melody pierced the ruckus, distinct from the background noise, catching the ears of a few ponies running past. "_...and we'll never stop the journey..._"

"It's... it's working! Sweetie Belle, you're a _genius!_"

"_... not until we have our Cutie Marks!_" Ponies started to stop and look for the source of the sound. A few spotted the mouth of the cave behind them, and started breaking from the crowd. Sweetie Belle repeated the refrain, and gradually, more ponies started to follow the sound, and stream up the gully into the cave.

Once the flow became established and ponies stuck around to direct others the right way, they retreated into the cave to rendezvous with the other two Crusaders. A few unicorns were standing around to provide light, and the bridge was holding up well.

"Good job, Crusaders!" Applebloom cheered.

"But I didn't do anything..." Dinky tilted her head.

"That don't matter, all that matters is that we saved the day!" Applebloom cried out, and the four of them bumped fists. However, they were still more used to bumping hooves than fists, and Applebloom fell over backwards. She landed on a rock, ripping a large hole in the seat of her improvised pants. "_Oww..._" The other three gasped.

"Applebloom..." Dinky gibbered.

"Yeah, yeah, there go mah pants..."

"No, your... your..." Sweetie Belle stammered.

"Your flank!" Scootaloo blurted out. Applebloom pouted, and when she got up, she turned to get a look. On two legs, it was substantially more awkward, but when she saw, she nearly fell over again in shock. She rubbed her upper, outer thigh with a hand to make sure it was real - sure enough, the shape remained.

"It's... that's..." She turned her head to make sense of the shape. A hammer, superimposed on a large, shiny red apple. "... _a cutie mark!_" Her awe slowly turned to joy. She didn't care that she had a hammer on her flank, she knew full-well why it was there. "Girls! Check your flanks!"

Scootaloo pulled down the waist on her overly-baggy pants, to reveal a wheel with purple flames spinning from it. Sweetie Belle pulled up the side of her skirt, uncovering three silver bells in a cluster.

"We..."

"... we..."

"_... we got our cutie marks!_" The three of them jumped for joy, and Applebloom and Sweetie Belle pulled a reluctant Scootaloo into a hug. Dinky yanked down the elastic around her waist to check hers. She let out a disappointed noise, when lo and behold, her flank was still blank.

"I guess..." She sniffed, standing apart from the other three. "I guess you guys don't wanna hang out with me anymore..." Applebloom perked an ear upon hearing this, and broke free of the squeeze, much to Scootaloo's relief.

"Don't be silly! _Of course_ we still wanna hang out with you!" She put an arm over Dinky's shoulder.

".. really?"

"Yeah!" Sweetie Belle did likewise on her other side.

"Just because we have our cutie marks, doesn't mean we can't be friends!" Scootaloo beamed, folding her arms.

"If anything, now we can all help you with yours!"

"Yeah! Cutie Mark Crusaders _forever!_"

"Aw, thanks, guys!" Dinky wiped away a tear. Applebloom yanked Scootaloo in for another group hug. She groaned, and let them get it over with.

* * *

><p>A gryphon stumbled through the corridors of the palace, stopping at the confluence of three hallways and a pair of open doors. Twilight and Rarity, still a little dizzy, spotted the gryphon trying to make for the shattered window behind them. Curiously, rather than the hungry, predatory expression on most of their encounters so far, this one was terrified. Twilight wondered what could <em>possibly<em> have spooked this one into running away so readily?

_Bonk._

A wooden pole came out of nowhere to skull the gryphon from above, and it fell to the ground, unconscious. Behind it, Fluttershy was standing with her staff in hand, panting.

"Fl... Fluttershy?" _Boy, something must have her worked up!_

"Twilight! Rarity! I've been..." _Pant, pant._ "I've been looking all over for you!"

"Catch your breath darling. What's the matter?"

"We need to go! Pinkie Pie is setting up the sewers to explode!"

"She's doing _what?_" Rarity exclaimed. "Has she gone _mad?_"

"No! Applejack came up with a plan to use..."

"... to use the explosive gas in the sewers to flush out the horde! _Of course!_" Twilight laughed, gears whirring in her head. "Because Rainbow left the cover off the hole, the sewer gas has been mixing with the outside air, and the sewers and storm drains are rigged up like a thermobaric bomb! And since we're evacuating everypony to the caves _anyway_, we can cut our losses and run!"

"So, now the plan is to abandon the city and then completely destroy it?" Rarity quirked a brow.

"It's... it's not pretty," Twilight sighed. "But we're running out of options. This way we have a plan to take care of the horde that goes beyond sitting it out. How long do we have, Fluttershy?"

"Pinkie's waiting on my signal, or thirty minutes, whichever's sooner. And that was... about ten minutes ago." Fluttershy was still panting. Twilight chewed her lip. Spike stumbled into the room, and collapsed from exhaustion.

"Spike?"

"Final... _finally..._ you guys shoulda slowed down and..." _Puff._ "... waited for me!" Twilight scooped up the exhausted dragon and stuffed him in her bag as best she could, along with the discarded copy of _Magic of the Body_.

"Alright, we need to head to the caves and make sure we can seal them. While I'm doing that, Rarity, you should try and track down the Crusaders, and Fluttershy, you tell Pinkie to hold off until we're ready."

"Oh m-_Sweetie Belle_, I completely forgot!" Rarity bolted to the door, and the others followed hastily.

* * *

><p>Applejack stumbled to a stop at the foot of the cave. Most of the streets were empty, save for a few hungry, angry gryphons wandering around; she guessed that the three Wonderbolts were doing a good job shepherding ponies towards the caves. Rainbow Dash fluttered down to perch on a high rock overlooking the street. Applejack gasped, picked up a small rock, and promptly hurled it in her general direction.<p>

"_Hey_, what's the big id-" _Clock._ "...ea?"

The stone hit a gryphon behind her square in the head, and stunned, it tumbled to the jagged rocks below.

"T'aint safe up there, sugarcube! Stay down low!"

"Yeah, yeah..." Reluctantly, Dash hopped down to street level.

"Anypony out there still?"

"Uhm... a few guards, and Spitfire and Soarin are doing another quick sweep to check for stragglers." Dash listed dutifully. Applejack breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders are doing a sweep at ground level."

"_What?_ You let them _out?_"

"Is... that a problem? They were handling themselves pretty well earlier. They eve-"

"Rainbow Dash, this whole city is about to blow _sky high! _They're in terrible danger!" Applejack barked. Dash gulped. "Which way did they go?"

"Over there, follow the wheelmarks in the snow." Dash pointed. Without another word, Applejack sprinted off after them. No sooner had she left, had Twilight, Rarity and Fluttershy arrived from another direction.

"Rainbow Dash! Have you seen Sweetie Belle?" Rarity blurted out urgently. Dash just pointed the same way again. Rarity was off like a shot.

"Alright, Fluttershy, you find Pinkie Pie and buy us a few more minutes." Twilight instructed. "Rainbow, keep me covered while I figure out how to seal this cave."

"What... what's going on? Why is the city gonna explode?"

"We're cutting our losses." Twilight grimaced, and started to pick her way up the gully.

* * *

><p>Fluttershy dropped down to a crevice in the side of the cliff. She could hear Pinkie Pie talking to herself, so she knew she was okay. As soon as she dropped into view, Pinkie bounced with excitement.<p>

"_Oh boy oh boy oh boy!_ Is it time?"

"No-no-no! We need a few more minutes!"

"Oh..." Pinkie frowned. "But... I already lit the fuse." Fluttershy gasped in horror.

"_Pinkie!_" She looked around for the burning fuse, finding no immediate traces of it. "Pinkie, where is it?"

"Oh, I hid it _really_ really well!" She giggled, oblivious. Fluttershy smacked herself on the forehead.

"We need to get away from here, _now!_"

* * *

><p>Applejack tore down the street single-mindedly. She didn't hear Rarity thundering along close behind, and she barely took notice of the occasional gryphon she vaulted over or just decked in the side of the head to get it out of the way. Up ahead, the scooter trundled through the thinning snow in blissful ignorance. The girls were chatting idly to each other, giggling like they hadn't a care in the world.<p>

_Screeeee._

Applejack yanked on the wagon, and Scootaloo vaulted the handlebars of the scooter, landing in a heap in the snow.

"Applebloom, we're going, _now!_" She yelled, and without waiting for a response, she grabbed Applebloom under the arms and threw her over her shoulder. As quickly as she came, she was off again, sprinting away with the squealing and flailing filly.

"Time to go Sweetie Belle, it's not safe here!" Rarity pulled Sweetie Belle up from the wagon and sat her on her shoulders, riding piggy-back.

"But-"

"_No buts!_" She replied firmly, jogging after Applejack.

A few seconds later, Scootaloo pulled her head out of the snow, and looked around.

"Guys?" She blinked. Confusion quickly gave way to panic. "_Guys!_"

* * *

><p>Applejack and Rarity arrived at the cave just as Fluttershy was touching down with Pinkie Pie.<p>

"Get everypony inside! The fuse is about to go!" Fluttershy staggered up to Twilight.

"_What!_ Already?" The ethereal cloud holding up a boulder dissipated, and it dropped. "_Damn!_ Plan B it is." She turned to the few ponies picking their way up the rockface. "Alright everypony, get inside! I'm about to put up a shield!"

"But-but-but..." Applebloom snivelled as Applejack set her down inside the cave.

"Okay, _now_ we have some time, what's the matter?" Rarity kneeled down to their level.

"_Scootaloo!_" Applebloom and Sweetie Belle whimpered simultaneously.

"Now, look here sugarcubes..." Applejack sighed. "If either one of us was carryin' two of ya, we might not 'a made it in time."

"But you can't just leave 'er behind!"

"I'm afraid there's no time. Twilight's about to seal the entrance." Rarity stated matter-of-factly. Truth be told, Applejack and Rarity were as distressed by the situation as their younger sisters, but they knew the facts, and were trying to keep a brave face.

Behind them Rainbow Dash was just passing Twilight to enter the cave. She was only able to catch a couple of things, but it conveyed the point quite clearly. _Scootaloo... left behind?_ Two images flashed in her mind. One was of the night all those months ago, when they were watching shooting stars: _Oh yeah, pipsqueak? How about taking out the trash?_ She'd heard that Scootaloo was really embarrassed at her display of hoof-licking afterwards, but Dash had tried to put it out of her mind at the time. After all, she was somepony else's problem... right? The other image, was of how she pictured Scootaloo now; alone, abandoned, with nopony to pull her out of the fire. Both images brought forth a feeling; the first gave her a sense of crushing guilt, not only for her abuse on that night, but for the general disregard she'd had for a little filly who she knew looked up to her. The second image gave her a sense of urgency, of duty. Being the impulsive pony she was, she didn't dwell on this epiphany for too long - she just went with what she felt was right.

"I'm sorry, we just have to leave Scootaloo behind." Rarity sniffed.

"_Not on my watch._" Dash growled, and bolted back out the cave mouth. Almost as soon as she was out, Twilight's shield went up.

"Rainbow?" Applejack felt the gust of wind from her departure, and looked up. "_Rainbow!_" She blundered over to the shield, pressing her nose to the translucent lilac window. Her heart jumped into her mouth.

* * *

><p>Scootaloo backed up to her scooter, and fell over it. Her fearful cries had attracted the attention of a group of gryphon raiders, who were now bearing down on her and licking their beaks. <em>This is it, Scoot. You're gonna die just the way you lived...<em> She gulped, and choked back a tear. _Abandoned._ She closed her eyes and clutched her scooter, waiting for the killing blow, and praying it was swift.

"_Hghyaaagh!_" She yelped, and she felt something yank on the back of her neck. It wasn't the feeling she was expecting, and she judging by how she was still able to feel, she certainly wasn't complaining. She heard and felt wind whistling past her, and her sense of up and down got all screwy. Confused, she opened her eyes and looked down to see the ground and three mystified gryphons disappearing beneath her. She looked up to see somepony flying straight up, pulling her by the scruff of her shirt and cloak. _Wait, I saw this pony earlier..._ "R... _Rainbow Dash?_" Dash looked back down briefly, and smiled to see the little filly's eyes light up.

"Might wanna cover your ears, kid." _Wait, what? Uhmm..._ She blinked. She looked back down, and heard some rumbling coming from below. The city was shrinking rapidly below them, but the rumbling was still pretty loud. She gulped, and did as she was told.

_Boom._

The streets below burst open, the mortar between the cobblestones disintegrating and the stones themselves shooting in all directions. White hot fronts of fire billowed up from underneath, enveloping the buildings. Multiple, resonating shockwaves scattered stone structures like sandcastles, and in the skies above the city, gryphons gliding around were burnt to cinders in a flash. Rainbow Dash kept flying straight up, away from the accelerating wall of flames, as fast as her wings would carry her. Scootaloo flapped her tiny wings as hard as she could, trying to help, even if in just the tiniest way. They could both feel the heat below them rising.

The air around them grew uncomfortably hot, and then quickly began to cool down again as the fire subsided. Dash eased off the pace, stopping at a safe height. The explosion had lasted no more than a second, but it was the longest second of their lives. Scootaloo was a little unnerved by their height - the remains of Canterlot were a mere black thumbprint on the ground. Nevertheless, she threw her arms around Dash's waist, the nearest part of her she could reach. Dash smiled, and lifted her up to her shoulders.

"It's alright kid... we're safe now."


	34. Epilogue

The sun hung high in the sky over Ponyville. A couple of swallows could be seen here and there, and patches of grass were beginning to show up through the blankets of snow. Winter wrap-up wasn't officially being performed this year, but a few ponies nonetheless took it upon themselves to clear the snow from their property, plant a few seeds and clear some clouds. Pulling her coat around her, a mailmare went about her rounds.

She drifted up to the front gate of Sweet Apple Acres, landing next to the mailbox. Three members of the Apple family were out and about, getting the farm ready for the year. Applejack was nearest the front, and she rushed up to greet her. Her hat was adorned with a big, red apple pin in the middle.

"_Howdy!_" She beamed.

"Hey, Applejack!" Derpy Hooves chuckled, diverting her letters from the mailbox to Applejack's hand.

"Let's see... orders, invoices... pff, nothin' interestin'."

"How's the farm doing?" Derpy leaned over the mailbox.

"Well, Big Macintosh is havin' a little trouble adjustin'..." Applejack pointed over her shoulder, where halfway up the hill, Big Mac was trying his best to pull a plough through the soil on two legs. Applebloom cruised by him, sitting atop a some contraption that she cycled idly, and it ploughed the soil behind it. Big Mac gave up on his endeavour, and collapsed in an exhausted heap, grumbling. "... but we're gettin' there." Applejack chuckled.

"Alright, good luck! It, uh, looks like you'll need it. I have to keep going, busy busy!" Derpy held up her full mail bag.

"Sure thing sugarcube, take care!"

* * *

><p>Derpy knocked on the door of a cottage by the Everfree forest. A soft voice replied something that didn't make it through the door, and Fluttershy opened it.<p>

"Oh, hey Derpy! What are..." She smiled. Derpy's mouthful of letters answered her question. "Oh! Let me get those..." She giggled and took the envelopes. She handed back two that weren't addressed to her.

"Fluttershy, who is at the door?" Another voice inside called. "Open it wider, so I can see some more." Fluttershy pulled the door wide open, revealing a table inside. The table had a steaming pot of tea, two cups, and two chairs, one empty, and one on which sat a zebra.

"Oh, Zecora! I have a letter here for you, too!" Derpy chuckled, reaching into your bag. "How are you keeping up with things?"

"The change took some getting used to, but! These new appendages have proven fruitful." Zecora smiled, lifting her cup by its handle and taking a sip.

"Would you like to stay for some tea, Derpy? We're watching the birds and comparing them with last year." Fluttershy smiled.

"Sorry Fluttershy, these letters won't deliver themselves. Not everypony has a dragon for a mailbox!"

"Alright, see you later!"

* * *

><p>The doors of the Carousel boutique were wide open, and the shop was quite busy. Derpy picked her way through the crowds to find Rarity hard at work, doing multiple jobs at once. Sweetie Belle and Dinky Hooves were in the corner, playing dress-up.<p>

"Mom!" Dinky giggled, and rushed up to hug her mother.

"Heya, muffin!" She smiled, picking Dinky up and swinging her around once before putting her down again. "How are the crusades going?"

"Well, we crossed off fashion designer and salesmare earlier..."

"Rarity wasn't too happy about either of those..." Sweetie Belle added.

"... so now we're trying fashion m-" Dinky tripped on her over-long dress, and quickly picked herself up. "... fashion model!" Derpy chuckled and ruffled her mane.

"You'll get there." She pulled out a big stack of letters and placed it on the counter next to Rarity.

"Oh, don't tell me there's _more_ bulk orders! I can barely keep up as-is!"

"Sorry, but it looks that way." Derpy sighed.

"Don't worry darling, it's not your fault. I should probably start taking on employees at this rate, business has just skyrocketed!"

"Let me know how that turns out! I'll, eh, try not to ask for another uniform too soon." She smiled. Rarity just chuckled, and continued scribbling some notes with her hands while stitching two sheets of fabric together with her magic. "I'll leave you to it, see you later!"

* * *

><p>Sugarcube Corner was alive with the sound of party music, and the windows were all blocked up with balloons. Derpy fought her way in the door, only to get whisked inside by an enthusiastic Pinkie Pie.<p>

"Derpy Hooves! You're just in time for the party!" Pinkie giggled. Derpy looked around and quirked a brow. There was quite a crowd in here, and the Cakes were hopelessly trying to keep the business running through it all. She had absolutely no idea what the celebration was for, but with Pinkie, it's not like an excuse was necessary.

"Party? Gee, I didn't realise." She chuckled.

"Of _course _it's a party, silly filly, what do you think all the balloons are for?" Pinkie pouted. Derpy rolled her eye (the other one staying eerily still).

"Sorry Pinkie, but I can't stay too long. I'm just here with the mail."

"But... _we have muffins!_" Pinkie looked back to the mailmare with doe-eyes. Derpy bit her lip; it sure was tempting to stick around.

"_Hnnng..._ just one." She knew it wouldn't just be one.

* * *

><p>Twenty minutes and a big plate of muffins later, Derpy was away to continue her rounds. Her next stop was a large house made of low-hanging clouds, with rainbows bridging many of them. She didn't so much have to knock on the front door as push her way through the wall.<p>

In the main room, Rainbow Dash was asleep on a cloud in the middle of the room, while Scootaloo was finding a place for her new scooter.

"Oh! Hey Derpy!" She grinned, tossing it in the corner. Dash stirred.

"Hi Scootaloo, should I, uhm..."

"I'm awake..." Dash groaned, and rolled off the cloud onto the floor. She loved living in a house made of clouds; falling on things and hitting things never hurt.

"... never mind. Just here with the mail Rainbow." Dash peeled herself off the floor and fluttered over to Derpy to take the letters.

"Let's see... there's your formal adoption papers, Scoot!" She smiled at Scootaloo, showing her the letter, before moving on to the next one. "That's... _finally!_"

"What?" Derpy tilted her head.

"Official Wonderbolts acceptance letter. Man, the red tape in these things... I've been training with them for two months, and the letter only gets here _now!_ Typical." Dash whinged. Derpy sniggered, and turned to leave.

"I've still got some way to go on the rounds, I'll catch you guys later!"

"See ya!"

* * *

><p>One of her last stops on her route was the Ponyville library. Not far from the library was a bench, upon which Lyra and Bon-bon were sitting. Bon-bon sat normally, while Lyra was sitting on her legs, all scrunched up. It looked uncomfortable and awkward.<p>

She was surprised to be going to library at all, what with Twilight having Spike. However, low and behold, she was carrying letters addressed to one Twilight Sparkle at the Ponyville town library. She knocked on the door, and Spike answered.

"Who is it, Spike?" Twilight called.

"Mail!" Derpy replied, before Spike had a chance to answer.

"Oh! Come in, Derpy!" She heard, and happily stepped in from the cold. Twilight jogged down the steps from her upstairs desk to greet Derpy and take the letters off her.

"Uhm... why are you getting all these letters through normal mail lately?" Derpy asked, tilting her head.

"Oh, that's easy. I've been doing a lot of business with the various princes, barons and mayors of Equestria, and not all of them have dragons."

"I... hope you don't mind me asking, but... eheh, why?" Derpy chuckled.

"Oh, not at all!" Twilight smiled. "Well, since both the crown Princesses of Equestria are, well, no more, and neither have any heirs, they're all trying to figure out a new system of government. And since I was Celestia's personal student, they've given me the job of mediating the whole thing..." She grumbled at the last part.

"Heheh... well, it gives you something to do in place of the friendship reports."

"I guess... but it's a bit like managing squabbling foals sometimes. And then there's the reconstruction of Canterlot to oversee..."

"Well, you certainly have your work cut out for you... mind if I ask a couple more things before I go?"

"Sure! The letters can wait."

"What was in that book Luna was reading?"

"Oh, that?" Twilight smiled, and pulled the unmarked volume from her desk. "It turns out she wasn't reading it, she was _writing_ in it. It's her whole life story!"

"Really? Wow..."

"Yeah, there's all kinds of things in here! One of the most interesting things, I think, is her account of the _real_ Celestia."

"_Real_ Celestia?" Derpy tilted her head.

"Mhm. It turns out, the djinn that we banished didn't create the identity of Princess Celestia, it took it from a real pony all those years ago. Luna really did have an older sister called Celestia, and they were both Princesses of Canterlot!"

"Ah... so you could say Celestia wasn't all bad?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes. The book says the real Princess Celestia was quite like the personality the fake one adopted during its reign of Equestria. It... it makes me miss her a little bit." Twilight closed the book. Derpy paused before responding.

"I think we all miss the Princesses a bit." She put a hand on Twilight's shoulder, and she looked back with a smile. "But we did the right thing." Twilight nodded, and returned the book to its shelf.

"Yes. Yes we did." Twilight's smile widened, and she started back up the steps to her desk.

"Hey... Twilight?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think... do you think the gryphons will be back?" Derpy tilted her head earnestly. Twilight thought a little before answering.

"They will. But after what we did, not for a long time. We'll be ready for them then." She smiled. Derpy nodded, and smiled back. Silently, she left the library to let Twilight continue her work.

Twilight returned to her seat at her desk where a book lay open. It was near the end; only a few pages were left in the manuscript. She took a quill, and scribbled out the final few lines:

_Free from the oppressive hooves of the djinn masquerading as their Princess, and the ravenous claws of the horde, the ponies of Equestria resolved to rebuild their shattered lives, and free of their shackles, usher in a new golden age. A whole nation looks forward to the future, to the promise this country holds; only one pony looks back. She does so, not to long forlornly, but to chronicle the true tale of their liberation, so that it may never be forgotten, so that in the years to come, ponies will look back upon their proud history, and draw strength from it._

_Your humble servant,_

_Twilight Sparkle._


End file.
